We caught up with Patty just before her performance at the 60th anniversary of Club Passim event at the Boch Center’s Schubert Theater. As an artist covered by music icons from Emmylou Harris to Kelly Clarkson, it is obvious how her music resonates with so many people. All you need to do is listen to her and a guitar on stage to appreciate all she contributes, down her own Hallway of this music culture and the Folk Americana Roots Hall Of Fame.
Hallways is proud to report that our next guest Patty Griffin has received a 2020 Grammy award! This is the third Grammy for our friend Patty Griffin, a New Englander from Maine with with a heart in Boston heritage and a love for music that goes back to her family roots in Ireland.
We caught up with Patty just before her performance at the 60th anniversary of Club Passim event at the Boch Center’s Schubert Theater.
As an artist covered by music icons from Emmylou Harris to Kelly Clarkson, it is obvious how her music resonates with so many people. All you need to do is listen to her and a guitar on stage to appreciate all she contributes, down her own Hallway of this music culture and the Folk Americana Roots Hall Of Fame.
Chuck Clough 1:37
Thank you for sitting with us. And we know you just you just got him would you come in from?
Patty Griffin 1:41
We were just in Northampton? Okay, so now we
Chuck Clough 1:56
None of us are doing well right now. So it's okay. Sarah, we I heard you doing the soundcheck you sound beautiful.
Patty Griffin 2:03
Oh, thanks. Well, you know, it's you know, you sound better than that. But you are originally from Boston. Well, I grew up in Maine Grubin, May and I moved to Boston in 1986. And I was here till like 96. And my family I've roots here, Irish roots here. My dad was born here, two Irish immigrants who worked in I think it's now the estate that they worked on as servants is now where they have the equestrian Academy over on the Brookline JP line. Yeah, it was. I think it was a robotic estate. It's right across like you jump over onto the Brooklyn golf course. Okay. And golf course towards the end of my time in this area I was living in in Jamaica Plain and I walked over there and took a look around. I've never been there before. You're in Jamaica Plain
Chuck Clough 2:59
as that When you started hitting Passim?
Patty Griffin 3:01
no, I was in passing. I probably did play Passim while I was living in JP but I, I worked in Harvard Square for a long, long time at a Pizzeria Uno. And then I was a and then I was a telephone operator at Harvard. I liked it. So if you ever called 495 1000 and you got me just like to apologize right now. From my college, huh? at the college at the college.
Ronnie 3:30
So you were at the pizzeria. On the corner near where the Starbucks is now across from the Curious George bookstore.
Patty Griffin 3:37
Yeah, it's all changed now. That was the that was the German the Tasty is right on
Ronnie 3:42
the Tasty and Shay's the bar. So you answered phones, interesting.
Patty Griffin 3:48
And at the end of my time in Harvard, I worked if I had quite a few little jobs,
Ronnie 3:53
and while you were you busking, or were you above busking?
Patty Griffin 3:58
I did busking. I was just singing credibly shy. And I think to make busking work, you really have to, you know, get to be able to bark
Ronnie 4:06
the show while you were doing shows here and there while you're having some more like waitressing or day jobs. And
Patty Griffin 4:11
yeah, I think that I don't remember how I ended up getting my first gig at passim. I had a manager, a young woman who decided to try to manage me. She's gone on to do great things that have nothing to do with music management, but she I think she booked me at passim. And then they they liked what I did. And they Bob and Ray Donlon liked what I did saw the raw talent, which was very raw. They had me come in for opening slots there. And I wasn't there, like probably their prize person, I was not super together. And, you know, it's, I thank God that I've had a little bit of success so I can afford people to sort of mind me, because I now have strings for my guitars that all go in the right place. Show up like Five minutes late running in from the bus, or the train or whatever, and have like three high E strings on half of my guitar and nothing if it broke, I was screwed. You know, so put up with that.And they had me back a lot. So
Ronnie 5:16
raw talent is an interesting phrase because I think you summed up a lot there. And so you can't teach that it happens. And it's in your songs and it's in what you bring to the music. I also think of passim when I think of raw talent, too, because there's something really special about that room. So we're here for the 60th anniversary, hard to believe. I believe when you think of, you're on the road, you're traveling, you're doing albums. When you think back to passim and coming maybe riding the bus here what comes to mind, what is there a story? Is there something that you something you hold in your heart about
Patty Griffin 5:54
it was really like abject terror. I think you know, a lot of what I know about it now, I think I was deer in the headlights, very, very shy, really needing to get these songs out of me and just knowing I had to go try to do this in spite of how shy was, and it, you know, debilitating when you're a performer actually. And I think Bob and Ray hung in there with me. And towards the end, I started to sort of get a groove. And so Oh, this is where I want to go, this is the songs that I need to write and this is how I want to sing them. And this I want to hit my guitar, you know, I really started to get more formed, I guess, in different places, but, you know, through a lot of, you know, some trial and error I think they did, looking back considering I was late and showed up with not enough guitar strings couple of times they they really kept behind me, one of the most moving stories I have about them, you know, they Bob and Ray Donlon. They were it. They ran that Place, you know, practically lived there. So Mondays were closed, you know, and they needed that time and they weren't they weren't spring chickens when I was in the 90s when I needed a place to do a showcase because there was sort of some record label interest and they open their doors on a Monday and they came in and worked the show and allowed me to go and do a showcase and there was some major label interest and a little bidding war ensued and then you know, really there went, you know, no more a day job after that. So they really did goofy Kinsler. I always think back on like, reading, to reading from the train to jumping up on stage and going got to open and break strings. I have nothing you know, and and they you know, to that moment, you know, how they if it were my club, I'm not sure I would have that girl back, you know, especially
Chuck Clough 7:57
club is like, I mean it clothes everywhere. They're running. out of money. I mean, so it wasn't like, it was in dire financial straits. Around that time, wasn't it? Yeah,
Patty Griffin 8:05
they were. They were struggling.
Chuck Clough 8:07
But that's the beauty. Beauty of I listened to a podcast with Betty Siggins. And that seems to be the beauty of it. They I mean, Matt Smith has to general manager there, he has to fill seven nights and full of music. And they are always it's not just about big names coming through, it's about the locals who are after they do their set. Their waitressing or waitering, in the in the restaurant there. So they're, they're working and they're just they're just huffing it. And that's, I think that's the beauty of passim is that they see that raw talent and have no fear about putting them up on stage even if the even if the musician might be a little fearful.
Patty Griffin 8:46
Yeah, yeah, that was definitely there.
Chuck Clough 8:49
So now what about what is it about? I mean, since you've you you had family here, you come back a lot is Boston really your home for you? Where is
Patty Griffin 8:56
it? It's one of them? Yeah, I've definitely connected in ancestrally connected here. I think that you know, the Irish were just out west last night and you know come from Dingle Irish come from Western Irish people and my grandparents. My grandmother ended up in Springfield. Her family was in Springfield, you know, in Boston, depending on what county you are from, you know, different regions of Boston. I don't know if you guys know anything about that a little bit. Yeah. Irish, you know, they were, there was the Kerry region, and there was the, and they would have carried get togethers and I believe my grandparents met at one of those events. Oh, really, that's great grandfather was in I think, based in Boston, probably the entire time and not Springfield. And they got married here, but they're both from the same area in Ireland. It's deep here, there. I think that the Irish really not to bring this back to this sort of cause and I'm really on right now. But I live in Texas right now and I'm 20 minutes away from my privately owned prison. And that is housing, Central American immigrants that has been caught and from at the border, and like thousands of them in there. It's a horrible prison according to all of the lawyers who are allowed in there to try to help them process their lives through the system. And it was housing. This one in particular was housing, women. But there's another one not too far away, that is housing women and children.
Ronnie 10:26
And that country is hears about into sound bites and we know people that are there, but when you live in it, it's different.
Patty Griffin 10:32
And I think the Irish were that poor. So I feel like this. This time I particular being in Boston, I feel this really strong empathy for what they were what they had to sort endure when they got here. My father was born in 1921 remembers like no Irish need apply science.
Ronnie 10:51
It's 100 years later, and it's like history repeats itself. And, yeah, there's a lot of that with the immigrant connection. Yeah. That you Don't know it unless you've either directly heard about it or your your, your your family's talked about over the generations. Does the music get connected to your ancestry?
Patty Griffin 11:10
It's sort of one of the single sources for I mean, I one of the singles again, you say that it's possible. It's a massive source of everything from Hey, and I, it took me a while to figure that out. And I think once I did tap into that the first moments of songwriting that felt like me coming out something coming out of me had to do with family.
Ronnie 11:31
Do you think there's kind of a Gaelic history in you or something that you channel back?
Patty Griffin 11:36
I think its DNA, probably largely DNA. It's on both sides of my family. There were my mother is a French Canadian descent and they were all singers. So I mean, there's something going on there. But the Irish or, you know, the Irish or the Irish and there's something. Something about the Irish and
Ronnie 11:54
my wife is Irish Catholic, and she's from Maine. Oh, yeah. And they all grew up in Portland and Katie Elizabeth Yeah. And so I'm kind of a main wannabe, she married a Jewish guy and sort of now with our kids, we say our kids are Jewish.
Patty Griffin 12:08
You're Jewish. You're Irish. Yeah.
Ronnie 12:13
They're both immigrant, you know, from immigrant families from long ago. So
Chuck Clough 12:16
yeah, that's cool. So this being the 16th, we were just actually looking down the hallway of all the people who are here, we're excited to talk to all the people come to see you. Because they're either going to be people who grew up going to passim, and listening to you, and who'd been involved with passim or musicians who are now going to passim to play. And it's kind of become this I mean, for a venue that almost went out of business a few times and was a bookstore at one point, but farm was failing and closing forever. It's now become this iconic place, and everyone's kind of gathering together in one place to kind of celebrate the 60th 60th anniversary. I think it's just amazing to see that I'm so excited to talk to the audience and see what they have to say about it. Yeah.
Patty Griffin 13:00
I think I went back and did some shows there, probably 2013. And it was a blast. You know, there's nothing like it.
Ronnie 13:09
You know, we speaking of the hallway, actually, this is a new podcast called hallways. And it hasn't been released yet. So Joe Spalding. He is the CEO of the box Center, which is Schubert and the Wang. So this is all through the box center, this new show, we're gonna do a series. The reason why it's called hallways is because it's connected to the Hall of Fame for the folk, American or roots Hall of Fame. Okay, and so when you think of folk Americana, just that essence of this type of beautiful music, why is important to have a hall of fame for this type of music?
Patty Griffin 13:45
Well, I think it's important for Americans to get used to the idea of preservation of whatever sort of cultural events that we have that so Help us get through our days survive our days that we're in to help us sort of bring an understanding to our days, the arts. And we are. We're not great at it. You know what I mean? There's a lot. There's a lot of tearing down of buildings and forgetting of aging artists and I think I go to Mavis Staples, you know, a lot in my mind when I think of that legacy. And I mean, I think it's just there's something in Mavis that is so set on having to speak until she can't do it anymore, and sing about what she knows she has to sing about to us, and it's this generous thing that is done a great effort with great effort and joy.
Ronnie 14:50
It's not just entertainment, it's communication.
Patty Griffin 14:52
It's communication for her. And I hate labels. I have to say I hate labels, but I think we we have to have them because We need it, we need to, we do need places where we can go into sort of sit back and hear the immensity or look at the immensity of these legacies that have been given to us and this really young nation struggling to define what it is and what we're doing and what we're trying to do with this collection of land and people and I think right now it is it is important for us to have those places to go and to see the the work that's been done and, and to you know, just I was talking to somebody about Phil Ochs the other day and I put on my he was saying how a lot of Phil Ochs work has sort of fallen by the wayside was too political and I agree in some ways, but on the other hand, I just put the song about Harlan on my playlist, pre show, because I felt like a lot of what he was saying just in that song is still happening. You can sort of place it in our time and it's the same struggle. We're saying the same struggles, you know, we're not 50 years go by, but a lot of the same things with different names and different faces are happening. So this music helps us to the music that's been made a lot of it that came through the doors of passim helps us to remember listening to it. That does a couple of things. One of the things it does we feel like we're not alone, we other people are having these feelings like what do we do feelings. And also it brings some kind of picture and definition for of these problems that maybe you're just feeling and you can even put into a framework and that is the job I think of a lot of artists that write songs and the way that I do.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai