American Kid

This is Patty’s first new album of self-penned sons in 5 years. Patty has scanned over 1.2 million albums in the US. She won a Grammy in 2010 for the album Downtown Church and in 2007 she won the American Music Association “Artist of the Year” and “Best Album of the Year” for Children Running Through. Patty has recorded 7 studio albums and 1 Live album. Emmylou Harris and Dixie Chicks (Top of the World) are just two of the artists that have recorded her songs.

With a major underground swell occurring for Patty over the last decade or so, she is an inspiration to many fans and music critics, and to countless recording artists. Steadily gaining the recognition she deserves, she is now regarded as one of today’s most significant songwriters.

Patty’s songs move effortlessly from straightforward folk to gospel-tinged ballads right on through to unabashed rock and roll anthems, defying attempts to pigeon-hole her into a genre. As one critic put it, “It’s music that seems to exist on its own plane, like that of Joni Mitchell or Billie Holiday. One comes to Patty Griffin’s music on her terms, not yours.”

It’s the same reason why Kasey Chambers says, “Patty Griffin can do no wrong”, and Emmylou Harris says, “I would go anywhere, anytime to hear Patty Griffin sing her extraordinary songs.”

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 song writing. Robert Plant sings on three songs, and is also a member of Band Of Joy with Patty.