![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hope_griffin2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHope Griffin is a Western North Carolina-based singer-songwriter. She sings and plays acoustic guitar in a soulful, rootsy style. But she arrived at that singular style via a somewhat unconventional route; her background isn\u2019t at all typical of Appalachian songsmiths.<\/p>\n
Griffin was born in Alaska, and that state\u2019s \u201cnomadic quality of life\u201d influenced her eventual songwriting. \u201cMy song, \u2018A Fisherman\u2019s Life\u2019 is about that,\u201d she says. \u201cMy dad was born and raised in Alaska, and there were always nautical things around the house. That lifestyle really affected me.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Always interested in music, Griffin studied classical voice at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn. \u201cI knew I wanted to be a performer,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t necessarily know what I wanted to do with music after I graduated.\u201d Though her official course of study pointed in one direction, her passion led her down a slightly different path.<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting songs and playing guitar was a hobby for me, something that I did in my dorm room,\u201d Griffin says. And she had long been a journaler, putting down her thoughts on paper. \u201cI had a few songs that I would never share with the world, other than the girls in my hall,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Griffin laughs again when she explains where her initial songwriting inspiration came from. \u201cI would have my door open after a long day of school; I\u2019d just be fiddling on my guitar. Some of the younger students would come in and tell me their woes, and I would make up funny songs for them on the fly, to make them happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every year the college held a songwriting context, and near the end of her senior year Griffin decided to enter. \u201cYou could submit one of your songs, play it, and your friends would come and vote,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Griffin won. \u201cAnd that was very surprising to me,\u201d she admits. That win was the catalyst she needed to take songwriting more seriously. She moved to North Carolina in 2008, working full time and writing music in her spare moments. \u201cI spent my first couple of years here just being kind of a hermit,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then in 2010 I started getting out and doing open mics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Things took off fairly quickly after that; Griffin found her schedule of live dates getting busier and busier. Sometimes she sang and played solo; other times she joined forces with cellist Jamie Leigh Bennett and other like-minded musicians. \u201cMy dad is a cellist,\u201d she explains. \u201cSo when I wanted to expand my sound, I added a cello.\u201d Griffin loves the wide-screen, sweeping orchestral feeling the instrument brings to her otherwise spare, straightforward arrangements. \u201cI\u2019ve always had a love for the cinematic,\u201d she says. \u201cCello gives more depth and emotion to my tunes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hope Griffin released her debut EP, Say What You Will<\/i>, in early 2015. The next year, \u201cA Fisherman’s Life\u201d from that EP was named Best Song in a Mountain Xpress<\/i> readers\u2019 poll. Also in 2016, she released a full-length album, the well-received Where the Soil & Stars Meet<\/i>. And last fall she released a holiday-themed collection of songs, And the Lights Will Shine <\/i>[reviewed here]<\/a>. With the creative wind at her back, Griffin made the leap to being a full-time musician in January.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, I had already been doing music full time for two years,\u201d she emphasizes. \u201cI just had another<\/i> full-time job, too.\u201d With her focus now completely on music, Griffin is able to tour, playing shows in Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia as well as throughout Western North Carolina and other parts of her adopted home state. She has established a rhythm of work that suits her. \u201cI\u2019ll do solo, duo and trio gigs and residencies around town, and then I will go on tour,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Griffin leads a happy life. But just like in her college days, she continues to draw inspiration from the lives around her. And that gives variety to her songs. \u201cI heard it said somewhere recently: \u2018Happiness doesn\u2019t sell tickets,\u2019\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cBut really, anything that draws out deep emotion is what inspires me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hope Griffin is a Western North Carolina-based singer-songwriter. She sings and plays acoustic guitar in a soulful, rootsy style. But she arrived at that singular style via a somewhat unconventional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41],"tags":[237,3293],"class_list":["post-17281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","tag-asheville","tag-hope-griffin","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17283,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17281\/revisions\/17283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}