{"id":23464,"date":"2022-08-06T05:30:50","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T09:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23464"},"modified":"2025-09-01T08:05:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T12:05:36","slug":"hope-griffin-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/06\/hope-griffin-2-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Griffin: 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The last couple of years have been difficult for most everyone. As an unfortunate byproduct of measures taken to keep ourselves and others safe, the human need to communicate in person has been stifled. And as society gingerly moves toward and exit from this troubling era, the emotional debris becomes evident. Some artists have channeled the challenges they faced into music, one of the most effective means that creative humans to express themselves. Western North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Hope Griffin has done just that with her latest collection of songs, a five-song EP titled Before We Take Our Leave<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The title of Griffin\u2019s latest release is drawn from the lyrics of \u201cLullaby,\u201d the final song on the disc. \u201cI like to title my releases with a line from one of the songs,\u201d Griffin explains.\u201d She chose the phrase because it reflects upon each of the EP\u2019s five songs. \u201cEach is a different version of leaving something behind,\u201d she says. \u201cCarousel,\u201d for example is the story of the end of a marriage. \u201cLullaby\u201d is the story of a quick fling. And Griffin says that \u201cWhat You Didn\u2019t Say\u201d concerns itself with \u201cthe last thing you do before leaving town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin stayed busy during the pandemic, performing whenever she could, but one thing she hasn\u2019t done in quite awhile is release an album. \u201cMy last EP was a Christmas album in 2017,\u201d she says, referring to And the Lights Will Shine<\/i>, a collection of holiday classics plus one original tune.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve changed a lot since then,\u201d Griffin says. \u201cLike everyone has, I\u2019ve let some things go, and I\u2019ve kept some pieces.\u201d She describes Before We Take Our Leave<\/i> as \u201ca summation of all of those things that are still left in my suitcase.\u201d Griffin characterizes her current musical persona as \u201cHope 2.0. It feels like I\u2019ve been though a storm, and this is what has come out on the other side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the new EP\u2019s songs were written during the pandemic; others date from long before it. \u201cI wrote \u2018What You Didn\u2019t Say\u2019 years ago,\u201d Griffin admits. Her original concept for the song back then was a simple guitar-and-voice arrangement. But the finished recording features multi-tracked vocal harmonies and lovely violin accompaniment as well.<\/p>\n

And Before We Take Our Leave<\/i> showcases Hope Griffin as an even stronger, more confident vocalist than before. Griffin agrees, noting that she was \u201cfresh out of classical voice school\u201d when she recorded \u201cFisherman\u2019s Life\u201d more than a decade ago. \u201cFast forward ten=plus years,\u201d she says with a smile, \u201cand I\u2019ve found my own voice, my own style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin\u2019s stylistic range and versatility builds upon that formal training, adding in experience singing blues and \u201880s rock along with writing and performing her own material. On the occasions when she hears some of her early recordings, Griffin says that it\u2019s \u201clike looking at old pictures of yourself and thinking, \u2018That\u2019s girl\u2019s about to go through some [stuff]!\u201d<\/p>\n

But even Hope Griffin\u2019s earliest songs still resonate with her. That\u2019s likely because they were written in a heartfelt and emotionally honest manner. She says then when one writes a song that way, \u201cYou\u2019re capturing yourself in a time capsule; that\u2019s how you were then<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Griffin works with a larger set of tools than before. While her first recordings are spare, the songs on Before We Take Our Leave<\/i> variously employ cello or a full band. And the hypnotic and melancholy \u201cPiece of the Pie\u201d features a jazzy, soaring electric guitar solo.<\/p>\n

Griffin says that the full-band approach happened naturally, thanks in part to requests from those who\u2019ve seen her play live. At shows were she appears with her full band (featuring guitarist and frequent collaborator Eric Congdon), Griffin says that she has often been approached by people asking, \u201cDo you have anything I can buy that sounds like [what we\u2019ve just heard]?\u201d As refined and subtle as Before We Take Our Leave<\/i> is, the EP is also a musical answer to that question.<\/p>\n

And while Griffin remains a solo artist, at the same time she\u2019s a band leader, one who cultivates the creative talents of her fellow musicians. \u201cWhen I was writing \u2018Nothing to Do Tonight But You,\u2019 I had a vision of who was playing what,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we got to the studio, it was like, \u2018This is where Jack [Mascari] plays, and this is where Eric plays.\u201d But she left much of the details to her band mates. \u201cThat\u2019s where they<\/i> shine,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last couple of years have been difficult for most everyone. As an unfortunate byproduct of measures taken to keep ourselves and others safe, the human need to communicate in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41],"tags":[3293],"class_list":["post-23464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","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\/23464","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=23464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30034,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23464\/revisions\/30034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}