Nanci Griffith - The Last of the True Believers

The album cover shows Nanci Griffith standing outside a Woolworth's, holding a book of poetry--a recurring motif in her album art--while lovers dance behind her. That combination of the most quotidian, small-town details and the most committed but rarely pretentious poetic ambition is the key to Griffith's art. Her fourth and final album for Philo, a quiet masterpiece of the Texas singer-songwriter's style, weaves together a spunky, newgrass sound (courtesy of Bela Fleck and Mark O'Connor) and songs of leaving home and leaving lovers. --Roy Kasten Amazon.com essential recording

quite nice, quite good, very professional, but that's all

I got this because I'd heard it was her most country album, and it seemed to be considered a highpoint, before she got commercialised, by her fans. Her later stuff hasn't really stuck in my mind, apart from 'from a distance', which I certainly find the most memorable version of that song. I'm afraid all I can say about 'last of the true believers' is that it's quite nice, quite everything in fact; pleasant but not exciting or memorable, with lyrics that sometimes sound painfully trying too hard and ending up just pretentious. The musicianship is stunning, and she's a much better singer than Emmylou Harris, for instance, but I don't find it very exciting, and there's one song that seems to be too blatantly that song Willie Nelson does about '...Waylon and Willie and the boys...' with the words changed. Verdict: quite nice but nothing to write home about - give me Iris DeMent any and every day. October 20, 2007

Sweet Sweet Songs

I really enjoy listening to this singer. On this CD there are some exceptionally sentimental, sweet songs like "Love At The Five And Dime" and "More Than A Whisper." The latter is my favorite track on the CD: I hear feminine strength pushing through the sentimentality. Very charming. Some of the tracks are straight forward country and western music, like "Lookin' For The Time" which are not special to me. But I like these tracks too, they are mostly excellent for what they are. September 26, 2005

A Must Own Nanci Griffith Album! - Beautiful Sounds

Never did I ever think I'd be listening to a female vocalists that has the sound in her voice I'd been looking for the past 2 decades...
20 years too early
this sounds like today but it was yesterday.

One of her best works
every song is a jewel

after buying it once - I'd buy it again
A definite must have!

March 8, 2005

GREAT CD

NANCY IN THIS CD HITS HER TOP, THE MUSIC AND THE SONICS ARE JUST PERFECT.
WARMING LYRICS.
AGAIN THIS A "MUST" June 27, 2003

songwriting at its very best

I second all the other reviewers. To me, I find that this album puts Nancy Griffith in an exclusive class among the very finest of songwriters of our time. "Ponchartrain" does something few writers can do: write eloquently about the love of place, and to do it with melody that carries the words as freely as the spirit in those words. I WANT to see Lake Ponchartrain someday because of this song. There is so much going on in these lyrics... setting the scene with that other French-American locale, Montreal, and, like a lover who finds absence makes the heart grow fonder, realizes she must go back. In short, a simple sounding tune that is layered with a lot more than meets the ear initially. "Love's Found A Shoulder", is like diamond-cutting-- so exact in word choice that that the reult is so beautiful you cant really see the effort that went into it. Some day, as others have said, I really hope this writer gets a wider respect. Those of us who have found Nancy Griffith's songs know already that we have a found a true musical artist. I simply don't know of a better songwriter, regardless of genre or gender. April 26, 2003

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