***Please note – TX times are provisional until the final schedules are issued on Tuesday 3 December***
Nanci Griffith arrived in Ireland in 1987, and within a year, the country and its people had taken her to heart, making her the biggest-selling female artist of the day.
She had a poet’s eye and a novelist’s sense of place and character. She was a natural storyteller, giving a voice to the dreamers, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted. She was committed to holding truth to power in her songwriting and activism.
Nanci used to say her music was a swirling around of Woody Guthrie and Loretta Lynn, and perhaps that’s why Ireland took her to its heart. Following an appearance on ‘The Session’, a series that brought together a selection of new American folk and country voices alongside the best in Irish musicianship, she quickly became a household name. This proved to be a turning point in Nanci’s life- forging new friendships and taking up a second home in Dublin while playing to sell out audiences. Irish musicians formed the backbone of her much-loved Blue Moon Orchestra. They toured the world together for over a decade, and Nanci also went on to scale many more career heights, including winning a Grammy Award in 1993 for ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’.
It was said in Nashville that when her good friend and collaborator John Prine died, it was like the day Elvis died. Yet when Nanci passed a short time later, there was no such fanfare. As far as Nashville was concerned, it was as if she had vanished some years earlier. Sadly, it was also what she had chosen.
Join Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Dolores Keane, Mary Black, and those who knew her best as they search for Nanci Griffith’s life and times – from a distance.
Nanci Griffith – From a Distance.
A Frontier Films Production – Written and Directed by David Heffernan.
