Sid Griffin
Sid Griffin is a leading light of the Americana music scene having been a key part of this musical and cultural revolution since it began. His first professional break was with the Unclaimed in the post-punk L.A. scene circa 1980, a band which inspired all the later acts of the Paisley Underground (Bangles, Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate) and one Little Steven acclaimed publicly on his SiriusXM Underground Garage radio show. Two years later Griffin, a Kentucky native, shifted to performing the roots rock of his youth as a founder of the Long Ryders, a band which played Americana and alt-country tunes long before they were the established musical genres they are today. Currently Griffin and the Long Ryders are on display in Nashville via a sizable portion of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s acclaimed Western Edge exhibit alongside Griffin’s peers in Lone Justice and his heroes The Byrds.
In his long career Sid Griffin has not only written chart singles and recorded chart albums he’s been a record producer (Lindisfarne, Vote Stassen), a freelance writer (Mojo, Q, The Guardian), and for years was Resident Musicologist on the BBC Radcliffe & Maconie show. He has written four books and his classic study Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band, & the Basement Tapes is reissued this November with updated information. This book led to Griffin compiling and annotating the six CD release The Complete Basement Tapes box set (the Bootleg Series Vol. 11) for the Dylan office and Sony Music. Griffin also wrote the 2004 BBC TV documentary Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel (a best selling DVD upon release) and for BBC Radio 2 he wrote specials on the Carter Family and Buddy Holly. He has annotated over forty reissues for artists such as The Byrds, Hank Williams, Joe Ely, Ronnie Lane, Gram Parsons, Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys, Mike Nesmith, Phil Ochs, and the Flying Burrito Bros.
As a noted musicologist Sid Griffin appears in films and DVDs on Americana, Leadbelly, Led Zepplin, Muddy Waters, Gene Clark, Howlin’ Wolf, Reba McEntire, Ringo Starr, Van Halen, and in four different documentaries on Bob Dylan. He is, therefore, a staple of Friday night TV via cable arts channels.
In Italy in 2002 Griffin won the Piero Ciampi Award for his lifetime of artistic work and twenty years later in the UK he was a recipient of the Americana Music Association’s International Trailblazer Award.
Encouraged by his longtime friend Billy Bragg in 1997 he released his first solo album, Little Victories. After an in concert collection titled Worldwide Live 1997-2002 he returned to the studio in 2005 for his As Certain As Sunrise album. Balancing his solo work with renewed interest in the Long Ryders was tricky. Meaning Griffin’s most recent solo album was in 2014 with the acclaimed classic, The Trick Is To Breathe, a release heralded by Uncut magazine as their Americana Album of the Month in a lengthy review.
The Journey From Grape To Raisin is Sid’s first solo album in a decade. It was recorded in Nashville with his trusted producer Thomm Jutz (Nanci Griffith, Otis Gibbs, Steve Young) and dear friends such as legendary bassist Mark Fain (Ricky Skaggs, Chris Hillman) and session whiz Tammy Rogers (Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood). Its eleven songs include ten Griffin originals and one campfire cover of, get ready, the Velvet Underground’s Femme Fatale. When asked about the sessions and the album as a whole Griffin smiles and calls The Journey From Grape To Raisin “my career highlight, the best work I am ever likely to do. Heaven forbid I should go but if I did I’d die happy”.
THE END
