Nanci Griffith, a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter who kept one foot in folk and the other in country and was blessed with a soaring voice equally at home in both genres, died on Friday.
The song was a country hit in 1986 — but for Kathy Mattea, not for Ms. Griffith.
Nanci Caroline Griffith was born on July 6, 1953, in Seguin, Texas, about 35 miles northeast of San Antonio, to Marlin Griffith, a book publisher and singer in barbershop quartets, and Ruelen Strawser, a real estate agent and amateur actress.
By the time she was 12, Ms. Griffith was writing songs and playing in Austin clubs.
She told The New York Times in 1988: “When I was young I listened to Odetta records for hours and hours.
She put aside finger paints when she won a songwriting award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas; she released her first album, “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods,” in 1978.
She told Rolling Stone in 1993 that “the radio person at MCA Nashville told me that I would never be on radio because my voice hurt people’s ears.” After two albums aimed at the country market were met by positive reviews but middling sales, she made two albums that tried to reach pop fans, an effort that was successful in Ireland but not in the United States.
Her 1993 album, “Other Voices, Other Rooms” , comprised 17 versions of songs by her folk forebears, including Malvina Reynolds and Woody Guthrie.
In 2008, the Americana Music Association gave her a Lifetime American Trailblazer Award.