Patty Griffin To Release New Album 'American Kid' This May
Monday, 18 March 2013
Written by Elliott Batte
Award-winning singer-songwriter Patty Griffin has announced a brand new studio album, titled ‘American Kid’, will hit shelves on May 13th.
‘American Kid’, Griffin’s seventh record, is her first album of mainly new material since ‘Children Running Through’ in 2007. In between, she made the Grammy Award-winning ‘Downtown Church’ (2010), her version of classic gospel (though it featured three original songs). She also became a member of Band of Joy, the group in which leader Robert Plant and his cohorts meld British and American folk, rock and spiritual music.
‘American Kid’, much of which Griffin says “was written to honour my father,” returns to typical Patty Griffin territory, which is to say that it features a group of remarkably powerful, personal and unpredictable songs arranged and performed in a style that doesn’t entirely repeat anything she’s done on her previous albums while drawing on all of them. Yet Griffin’s catalogue is among the most unified in modern popular music, because her singing is as unmistakable and inimitable as her songwriting.
Griffin has lived in Austin and recorded either in Austin and Nashville throughout her career (she released her first album, Living with Ghosts, in 1996) but American Kid is her first album whose music sounds stylistically rooted in Americana.
“It was recorded in Memphis,” Griffin says, and adds with a quick laugh. “Part of the reason was the chance to get away from what I’d been doing.” The key to that was working with North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson and drummer Cody Dickinson. The Dickinsons had played acoustic sets opening for Band of Joy and Luther gave Patty lessons on mandolin. “With the Dickinsons, you’re constantly seeing people who work to get away from what they’re used to.”
Craig Ross, responsible for the production of an earlier Griffin collection (2004’s ‘Impossible Dream’), co-produced ‘American Kid’ with Griffin. Ross is perhaps best known for his guitar work with Lisa Germano as well as his own critically acclaimed solo albums. Griffin said she chose Ross because of his ability, as she describes it, "to get the ghost out of the machine." Ross plays - usually guitar, but also bass, mandolin, baritone, omnichord and organ - on all but two tracks on the album (the cover of Lefty Frizell’s ‘Mom and Dad’s Waltz’ and the showstopper ‘Irish Boy’, which is just Griffin and her own piano playing).
The other prominent musical contributor, appearing on eight of the 12 tracks, is guitarist Doug Lancio, who has played on just about every Patty Griffin recording since ‘Flaming Red’, and produced some of them. Robert Plant sings on ‘Ohio,’ ‘Faithful Son’ and ‘Highway Song.’
Look out for the album when it hits shelves in May - and stay with Stereoboard to keep up-to-date on Griffin and any tour plans she may have!
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‘American Kid’, Griffin’s seventh record, is her first album of mainly new material since ‘Children Running Through’ in 2007. In between, she made the Grammy Award-winning ‘Downtown Church’ (2010), her version of classic gospel (though it featured three original songs). She also became a member of Band of Joy, the group in which leader Robert Plant and his cohorts meld British and American folk, rock and spiritual music.
