Blindspotting: Nanci Griffith, "The Last of the True Believers"

The Legacy: An indie sensation at a time when indie sensations were extremely few and far between, Nanci Griffith occupied the same circle staked out by artists like John Hiatt and Paul Brady in the '80s — a songwriter's songwriter, in other words, and the type of artist who was far more likely to make money through someone else's cover of their song than through sales of their own albums. After releasing her first two LPs through micro-indies, Griffith signed with the folk-focused Rounder subsidiary Philo, which offered a big enough bump in distribution that she really started to attract attention; her third release, 1984's Once in a Very Blue Moon, found her working with a group of ace session players that included Béla Fleck and Mark O'Connor, not to mention Lyle Lovett, who contributed harmony vocals. The Last of the True Believers, released in 1986, built on that momentum — continuing her gentle drift into a more country-influenced sound, it made another persuasive case for her as an artist who was just as gifted as a songwriter as she was an interpreter of smartly chosen outside material. It also continued her hot streak with other artists — Dolly Parton covered "Once in a Very Blue Moon" in 1985, and Kathy Mattea nabbed a pair of hits in waiting from the True Believers track listing, recording "Love at the Five and Dime" and "Goin' Gone," the latter of which went to No. 1 at country radio.

The Last of the True Believers failed to chart, but it made enough of an impression for Griffith to get called up to the majors; her next release, 1987's Lone Star State of Mind, was the first of four LPs she'd record for MCA, and after that deal ran its course, she went to Elektra, where she released another six albums over a nearly ten-year period. Fittingly, after leaving Elektra, she eventually returned to Rounder, where she released a pair of albums before going fully independent again for Intersection, the final LP she put out before her untimely death in 2021.

First Impressions: I usually have a story behind why I avoided whatever artist I'm covering in these columns, but with Nanci Griffith, I've got nothin'. As I recalled in a post several months ago, I really love "Cradle of the Interstate," the little-heard song she recorded for John Mellencamp's little-seen 1992 film Falling from Grace, but for whatever reason, that never inspired me to purchase a Griffith record. I suspect I must have skimmed at least one of her albums at a used CD shop at some point, and I also suspect I probably thought it was too country to bother with, but I really have no idea.

The bottom line is that she's an artist I've long regarded from an appreciative distance (and yes, I wrote those words knowing full well that Griffith was the first one to record the noxious "From a Distance"), but until today, something held me back from listening to any of her records in full. All things considered, I probably could have chosen one that landed harder on the "folk" side of the folk/country divide, but if Last of the True Believers is a country record, it's a country record in a very specific mid-to-late-'80s way. If you've listened to enough country stuff from that period, I think you'll know what I mean by this — there's some pedal steel here and there, but the songs aren't what I'd consider overtly "country," and the production is nominally rootsy, but it's still trapped under the layer of gloss that even the most "traditional" folk or country records had to pass through in those days.

The production is almost immaterial, though, when you're dealing with a voice as pure and crystalline as Griffith's. Had she stumbled into a multi-platinum career, I'm sure we would have heard her tackle a far wider range of material, in a far wider range of sonic contexts — if only because I'd be willing to bet those sales would have inspired a bunch of label execs to pressure her into a Rod Stewart-style trudge through the arid wasteland of other artists' hits. The fact that this did not happen is no great loss; I raise the possibility merely as a means of praising the unrelentingly lovely instrument Griffith was born with, and how regularly it elevated even the most pedestrian material.

This is not to say that The Last of the True Believers is rife with pedestrian material. I would argue that it's a record that will not change your life, but there really isn't anything wrong with it — if I didn't know it had been released via Philo, I'd have suspected it came out on MCA, because it doesn't sound all that different from the stuff that label's country acts were up to during the era. (Furthering the MCA/Curb connection, you can spot Lyle Lovett on the cover of this album.) The (mostly Griffith-penned) songs are great, her voice is marvelous, and the arrangements are as smart as they are tasteful; it's the type of record you can painlessly put on repeat for an entire day, as I am currently here to attest. (Kendrick's new one will have to wait until tomorrow.) If it isn't anything more than that — and if I find myself gently questioning its inclusion on the "official" list of 1001 albums you have to hear before you die — that isn't really a knock against it. If Nanci Griffith's voice has the ability to move you, then you should listen to The Last of the True Believers. If her voice lacks the ability to move you, then you should see a doctor. That's probably the most succinct way I can put it, and now that I've done so, I feel like I've wasted everyone's time by taking a thousand words to get here.

Hidden Gems: Writing from the luxurious standpoint of not knowing the first thing about which songs are considered to be classics by the hardcore Griffith faithful, I can comfortably say that there isn't a bad song on the album, and if you're looking for a "hidden gem," you can cover your eyes and throw a dart at anything on the track listing that isn't "Love at the Five and Dime" or "Goin' Gone." Really, this is a lovely little record, and I'm happy to have spent a day in its company.