It's surprising, given her status as arguably the progenitor of the current wave of lullaby ladies such as Norah Jones and Katie Melua, that Griffith should never have released an album of torch songs prior to this. Not that her idea of a torch song follows the usual format: three tracks (" Grapefruit Moon", "Please Call Me Baby" and "Ruby's Arms" ) are written by Tom Waits, whose world-weary charm is noticeably absent from Griffith's versions, or, at least, smothered in strings. Her reading of " If These Walls Could Speak" is typical of her preciosity and the result is that when she attempts a standard like "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning", there's little in her cover to threaten one's memory of Sinatra.

Backed her Blue Moon Orchestra this new album is a collection of 'torch songs' (def. sentimental songs, often where the singer laments unrequited love), but rather than picking an array of well known songs she's chosen an eclectic selection from a wide range of writers. If you put your preconceptions of sentimental love songs behind you then this disc will really surprise you - the songs are beautifully written and the production is thankfully restrained, with piano, acoustic guitar and, of course, some sweeping strings melding together to produce the perfect backdrop for these ballads.

The highlight is Nanci's voice, throughout the 11 songs she puts real feeling into the lyrics without ever over emoting, and in the songs I knew prior to hearing the disc she brings a different emphasis to the lyrics purely in her manner of delivery.

While the whole album could wash over you with little effort required from the listener, those willing to delve into the disc will find a collection of superb songs that are sympathetically peformed and presented.....it's not for everyone but those who pick this up will find much to enjoy.

but rather than picking an array of well known songs she's chosen an eclectic selection from a wide range of writers. If you put your preconceptions of sentimental love songs behind you then this disc will really surprise you

Folk/country singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith shifts into chanteuse mode on this lovely outing. The sumptuous string-drenched arrangements are a change from Griffith's typically stark recordings featuring acoustic guitar and skeletal backing, but it's a natural progression in her nearly three-decade career. She has previously worked with an orchestra, on 1999's The Dust Bowl Symphony, but those results were mixed, due to the instruments' nearly overwhelming presence. On Ruby's Torch, the accompaniment is more organically integrated, and the sound supports Griffith instead of vice versa. No stranger to covers, Griffith taps Tom Waits for three of his older ballads, Jimmy Webb for one, and a few less famous tunesmiths: Donagh Long, Frank Christian, and Charles Goodrum, whose "Bluer than Blue" is a highlight. The durable "Late Night Grande Hotel," one of Griffith's most enduring originals, also makes an appearance in what could be its defining version. This is beautiful music for somber, but not depressing, moods, and closing-time last calls. The chestnut "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," best known in its classic rendition by Frank Sinatra, fits perfectly in this company, and the opening "When I Dream," written by Sandy Mason, sets the tone of regret and longing, both in life and love, that dominates the album. This lush, reflective work is a wonderful vehicle for Griffth's yearning, supple voice. It shows her to be as commanding a torch-song interpreter as a guitar-strumming roots veteran, and points the way for future projects in this vein. --Hal Horowitz

It's surprising, given her status as arguably the progenitor of the current wave of lullaby ladies such as Norah Jones and Katie Melua, that Griffith should never have released an album of torch songs prior to this. Not that her idea of a torch song follows the usual format: three tracks (" Grapefruit Moon", "Please Call Me Baby" and "Ruby's Arms" ) are written by Tom Waits, whose world-weary charm is noticeably absent from Griffith's versions, or, at least, smothered in strings. Her reading of " If These Walls Could Speak" is typical of her preciosity and the result is that when she attempts a standard like "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning", there's little in her cover to threaten one's memory of Sinatra.

Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith has put together an eloquent and sanguine collection of torch song originals and covers that burn bright against a Texas sky. A torch song is a lamenting composition about unrequited love. It is typically sung by a female and is often jazzed up by the likes of a princess of heartbreak like Nina Simone or Billie Holiday.

On "Ruby's Torch," however, it comes by way of folk ballads and the Blue Moon Orchestra. The piano twinkles and the hum of the strings and woodwinds are enough to stand alone, but they instead create an unfaltering passionate landscape over which Griffith lays down a sorrowful serenade.

Three of the tracks are Tom Waits songs, and Griffith succeeds in making them her own. She takes to raspy blues quite well on "Ruby's Arms." Her keen sense of balance is obvious from the beginning. On "When I Dream," she mixes exposed folk and country feeling in a way that makes it obvious why her music was called "folkabilly." A classical sentimentality is also added on "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" which was popularized by Frank Sinatra. And just like that she breezes by, making you remember a time when love came on gentle lips but with a potent sting.

— Will Mills

Fans of Nanci Griffith, were they not so devoted a lot, might be thrown a bit by Ruby's Torch, an album that wanders far afield from Griffith's exquisitely detailed folk and country recordings. Torch songs, appropriately enough, are the order of the day, and for the first time Griffith doesn't pick up a guitar on one of her recordings. Backed by a 13-piece string section, she assays 11 mid-tempo burners -- but don't write this one off as another standards set. Griffith is just as meticulous in her song selection as you'd expect, including two selections by Tom Waits and two of her own compositions, "Late Night Grande Hotel" and "Brave Companion of the Road." The latter especially demonstrates how idiosyncratic Griffith's vision of the torch song is; she makes no attempt to hide her Austin twang, and the cinematic sizzling drums and breathy saxophone are nowhere to be found. Instead, Griffith takes this long-planned detour to relax into some favorite songs and focus with her trademark intensity on her voice and its connection to the song. Apart from her own songs, perhaps the finest moment here is Donal MacDonough Long's "Never Be the Sun," its acoustic guitar-led arrangement making the most comfortable setting for Griffith's Texas Plains voice; its inspirational tone besting Lee Ann Womack at her own "I Hope You Dance" contest. Her interpretation of "Drops from the Faucet" is a close second, with a completely different feel -- bluesy vocal, muted trumpet -- that nonetheless shows what Nanci Griffith can do with a decidedly urban groove. It's easy listening in the most complimentary fashion. Mark Schwartz

Opportunism? Hardly. With that silky deep muslin contralto and all that musicianly savvy, it was only a matter of time before Nanci Griffith made an album of torch songs. But, characteristically, she didn't just round up the usual suspects (the only one of those is Sinatra's old favorite "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"). She went for three Tom Waits songs, a little Jimmy Webb, and some songs of her own. And while she was in the out-of-the-way neighborhood, she opened up the Crystal Gale and Willie Nelson songbooks to find "When I Dream."

Like Emmylou Harris - her vocal opposite now but a musical cousin - she knows what to sing, where to find it and what to do with it when she's got it.

We're not, then, mired up in the Great American Songbook but glorying in the Esoteric American Songbook with a singer capable of the transformative sublime - a singer's singer, a songwriter's songwriter, a singer-songwriter's singer-songwriter. In jazz, she'd be in the sorority of the supremely canny along with Blossom Dearie and Susannah McCorkle.

It's that voice, though, on top of the lush strings of the Blue Moon orchestra, that grabs you and won't let go - that kitchen legato that is both celestial and earthy as hell.

Her torch, not surprisingly, is her own. But then everything she does is her own.

- Jeff Simon

One of the most acclaimed (if more melancholy) singer-songwriters on the scene today is Nanci Griffith. Often praised by her peers for her songwriting (Dylan had her perform at her anniversary, and both Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson have covered her songs), on her latest CD she's delving into the catalog of her peers and influences for her latest project, titled Ruby's Torch.

Included on it are songs by Tom Waits and Jimmy Webb as well as a sprinkling of original material. As you may guess have guessed by the title, the overall focus of the album is ballads and torch songs...just perfect for those cool and melancholy fall nights.

In her brief liner essay, Nanci Griffith claims that Ruby's Torch -- a collection of torch songs, what else? -- is a "dream come true" and something her listeners have requested over the years. Fair enough, but in typical fashion Griffith has put a spin on these nuggets, only two of which are her own compositions (old ones at that). In addition to "Brave Companion of the Road" and "Late Night Grande Hotel," there are three songs by Tom Waits (including his classic "Ruby's Arms," which the album title is adapted from), Jimmy Webb's "If These Walls Could Talk," Sandy Mason's "When I Dream" (the best-known version is by Willie Nelson, but Crystal *'s is better), "Bluer Than Blue" by Randy Goodrum (and a hit by Michael Johnson in the '70s), and "Never Be the Sun" by Donagh Long. In other words, what this amounts to is a recontextualizing of songs not normally in the torch repertoire. There's a great argument for Waits, given his songs' now common treatment by singers in this way. To show the juxtaposition, there is one honest-to-goodness tune from the canon in the David Mann/Bob Hilliard number "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," which headed a concept album in the 1950s by Frank Sinatra after his breakup with Ava Gardner (and was the closer on Griffith's own Clock Without Hands in 2001). Griffith uses her backing band, the Blue Moon Orchestra, as well as full-on string, horn, and woodwind sections. She's recorded in front of an orchestra before -- and not only once. Still, this feels both familiar and ambitious. But this time out she really and truly concentrates on being a singer. Her voice has more discipline, more refinement, and she has made her Texas drawl work for her in the most elegant and intimate way. While is in some ways another of her "heroes" records, it's a singer's record first and foremost. When covering songs in the past, she was highlighting the song first and her ability as a vocalist second. Ruby's Torch places equal significance on singer and song, and given her stylized readings of these tunes through a classic "Texas" sensibility, one can hear some of these songs as a soundtrack heard through the characters of Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show. While it's true that "Ruby's Arms" is the winner pulling away here -- because while Waits' version is very sad, Griffith's plaintive take is more reportorial and therefore devastating -- everything here works in context, and provides as seamless a record as she's given listeners this century thus far. In its way, this is a renaissance album for both the singer and these songs, though neither were ever hidden anywhere at all. This is the sound of passion, albeit one related by intimacy expressing itself in a dusty mirror. Recommended. ~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

With an alt-country musical sensibility and a bit of an Irish lilt to her voice, Nanci Griffith seems an unlikely performer to rework the torch-song-album oeuvre. But here she is, steering clear of the usual suspects that work their way onto every Great American Songbook-pilfering Boomer rocker cash-in project (and thank you, Rod Stewart, for moving on to hits of the '60s). No, Griffith plays by her own rules, and the results are richly rewarding. Instead of flogging Harold Arlen one more time, for instance, she chart her own course, relying on writers including Tom Waits (whose "Ruby's Arms" is handled sumptuously here). Yes, there's a Sinatra favorite here, but "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" comes across as fresh and reconsidered, not rote. In the end, "Ruby's Torch" is a mesmerizing piece of work that redefines a genre and a singer. -- Jeff Wisser

Nanci Griffith, Ruby's Torch (Rounder) – Album of folk and pop covers finds the revered Texas singer and songwriter in lush yet subdued strings and orchestra mode.

Nanci Griffith, "Ruby's Torch": The veteran singer-songwriter moves away from her typically stark performance style with this album of torch songs recorded with an orchestra. Released by Rounder/Umgd. In stores Nov. 14.

Nanci Griffith - Ruby's Torch CD (Rounder)
Ruby's Torch features an exquisite collection of songs from other writers -- including Tom Waits and Jimmy Webb -- recorded in lush arrangements with strings highlighting every nuance of Nanci's richly expressive singing.

Het is bijna dertig jaar jaar geleden dat de uit Seguin, Texas afkomstige singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith haar debuut maakte met "There's A Light Beyond These Woods" (1978). Vele platen volgden en bezorgden Griffith, die zich met haar muziek bevind op het grensvlak van pop, country en folk, een grote en trouwe schare volgelingen en in Ierland zelfs de status van superster. Zo verscheen in 1999 het album "The Dust Bowl Symphony", een plaat die ze samen maakte met het London Symphony Orchestra The Dust Bowl Symphony. Symfonische country, als het ware. Oude nummers werden gewoon opnieuw gearrangeerd, waarbij het orkest een duidelijk dienende rol had, en dat werkte boven verwachting zeer goed. Buiten de meer persoonlijke nummers op het album "Clock Without Hands" (2001) vinden we op deze plaat voornamelijk songs over de reis die ze maakte door Vietman. Griffith was al enkele jaren via The Vietnam Veterans Of America Foundation betrokken geraakt bij de campagne voor een landmijnvrije wereld, vandaar haar songkeuze op dit album. Maar feit is dat, Griffith van alle markten thuis is en dat na een groot aantal platen voor MCA en Elektra, Griffith terug is bij het label waarop ze in 1978 debuteerde: Rounder. Al in 2002 konden we op dit label genieten van het album "Winter Marquee", een live-cd met speciale bijdragen van Emmylou Harris en Tom Russell, hetgeen van dit album een welkome aanvulling maakte op haar studio-albums. Op 14 november wordt door Rounder haar nieuwe album "Ruby’s Torch" uitgebracht. "Ruby's Torch" staat vol met nummers die zich in een soort nachtclub-setting afspelen. Intieme, sfeervolle arrangementen en een verrassende tracklist. Songs van een ongekend hoge kwaliteit en vervat eigenlijk precies de tijdloosheid van dit wonderbaarlijke smartlappengenre waarin vocale kunsten en ontroering centraal staan. Begeleid door een voltallig strijkorkest bewerkte Griffith negen klassiekers en twee eigen liedjes. Op het album staan o.a. "When I Dream" (Crystal *), "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" (Frank Sinatra), "If These Walls Could Speak" (Jimmy Webb), "Brave Companion Of The Road", "Late Night Grande Hotel" en drie covers van Tom Waits "Ruby’s Arms", "Grapefuit Moon" en "Please Call Me, Baby". We keken dus met bijzondere belangstelling uit naar dit nieuwe album en Griffith overtreft onze stoutste verwachtingen, dit is eigenlijk de gedroomde rootsplaat sinds haar carrière. Griffith zet met deze nieuwe plaat voorlopig de kroon op haar werk. Veel heeft ook te maken met de productie, want niemand minder dan Trina Shoemaker (Whiskeytown, Queens of the Stone Age, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow) nam plaats achter de knoppen. Het levert een fantastisch geproduceerde plaat op. Shoemaker houdt van een lekker geluid, maar overdrijft dit gelukkig nergens. Griffith's mooie liedjes verzuipen daarom niet in een overdadige productie, maar krijgen door precies de juiste accenten net dat beetje extra dat een cd nodig heeft om uit te kunnen groeien tot een meesterwerk. En dat is het, want ook Griffith overtreft zichzelf op "Ruby’s Torch" met een serie fantastische songs. Kortweg: Op "Ruby’s Torch" worden we weer verwend met prachtige muziek. In elf songs, laat Nanci Griffith weer horen dat aan die status, die van superster, wat ons betreft niet getornd wordt. Wederom een klasse plaat van deze boeiende zangeres waarvan de kracht van haar muziek schuilt in de eenvoud.