"Contemplation of recording this album with The London Symphony was like being that small child atop the caprock looking out at the vastness of the dust bowl," writes Nanci Griffith in the liner notes to her new album, The Dust Bowl Symphony. "It is a retrospective of twenty-odd years of my songwriting and shaping those songs with the colors I had always wanted to hear in them and the opportunity to work with the finest musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra and their conductor, Andrew Jackman."

On The Dust Bowl Symphony, Grammy-winner Griffith celebrates two decades of musical roads traveled on a collection of songs that spans her entire career. With graceful, organic arrangements performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Nanci’s songs bloom with fresh elegance and quiet grandeur. The album is a true retrospective, covering every period, every transition, taking us on a journey through the dust bowl of Nanci’s experience. Besides the LSO, Nanci is joined along the way by members of her band the Blue Moon Orchestra, Sonny Curtis from Buddy Holly’s Crickets, Darius Rucker of Hootie & The Blowfish, and Beth Nielsen Chapman, among others.

"I’ve always wanted to do this," Nanci begins. "I grew up watching the Boston Pops on TV. Contemporary artists would go on and make ‘adult’ music -- music that was written down on paper! I always thought, ‘Wow, it’s no longer just pop. It’s the real deal.’

"After Other Voices, Too, most people thought I should go back to ‘Nanci Griffith’ by writing new songs and perhaps making an intimate, acoustic record," she continues. "But after paying tribute to so many songwriters on Other Voices, Too and to the Blue Moon Orchestra on Blue Roses From The Moons, I decided it was time to pay tribute to my own songs, to give them the opportunity to mature and be adult. I think we really succeeded in making these songs what they were meant to be. And now that it’s done, it has turned out to be my favorite album."

The Dust Bowl Symphony‘s musical origins can be found in an original production premiered by the Nashville Symphony and the Nashville Ballet early in 1999 entitled This Heart, which featured seven of Nanci’s songs in a piece about a day and night of a relationship. Four songs from the ballet appear on the new album -- "The Wing And The Wheel," "These Days In An Open Book," "Nobody’s Angel" and "Always Will." The album includes seven other Griffith staples, one new original and two well-chosen covers, all performed with honesty, warmth and uncommon beauty. The songs take both singer and listener on an emotional journey, with stories about life's many passages -- from one instant to the next, from one town to another, from love to loneliness and back again, from this life into the hereafter. Nanci’s voice has never sounded stronger, surer or more vibrantly soulful than in these performances.

The highlights are many. Darius Rucker lends his rich baritone to a stunning new version of "Love At The Five And Dime," one of Nanci’s signature songs. Nanci and Darius have been friends for years and have performed together several times. "It was Darius’ idea to make it a duet, and it took the song in a whole new direction," Nanci says. She was delighted with the new arrangement, as well. "Andrew Jackman did it, and I didn’t know what he’d done until we performed it. He based it on the live version, with my soliloquy about memories of the five and ten, with popcorn sounds and everything. It’s ingenious. I love it. It’s one of the biggest surprises of the whole album."

Of "The Wing And The Wheel," Nanci says, "It’s my favorite song on the record, and the oldest of my songs that appears. It’s a true reflection of how I live my life." Recording the album’s passionate rendition of "It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go" was a profoundly moving experience. "John McSherry, who played the Uillean pipes, doesn’t read music and he improvised his part," she recounts. "His playing brought me to tears, and then he started crying, too. This recording brings the song to what it should be."

Besides these and many other classics, Nanci treats her fans to three new songs: Buddy Holly’s "Tell Me How," Frank Christian’s "Drops From The Faucet" and her own "1937 Pre-War Kimball." "‘Tell Me How’ was one of Buddy’s last songs," she says. "It was never recorded in the way Buddy was recording at the time he died, which was orchestral pop. Bobby Vee did it on his Buddy Holly tribute, and we borrowed his arrangement and adapted it to the symphony." She performs the song as a duet with Sonny Curtis. The album’s other cover song, the smoky "Drops From The Faucet," is "the perfect way to end the album and the millennium," Nanci laughs. "I’ve always wanted to record it. It’s my way of saying happy new year 2000."

The Griffith-penned "1937 Pre-War Kimball" is dedicated in the credits "to the hands of the children at the W.O. Smith School Of Music." Nanci explains, "The school teaches musical skills to children. Many musicians support it, including Harlan Howard, Shania Twain, Steve Winwood and Chet Atkins. I donated my piano, a 1937 Kimball that I loved. Two days later, the school was firebombed, and the piano and many other instruments didn’t survive. Glen D. Hardin, Beth Nielsen Chapman and I recorded the track as a PSA to raise awareness for the school. It’s a simple demo, with Glen, Beth and me just clapping and having fun. The strings were added later -- it’s the only song we didn’t record all together."

The album was recorded live at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London and was mixed in Nashville. Most of the songs were done in one or two takes. "It was a breeze," Nanci says happily. "We did sixteen songs in four days. Andrew, the conductor, was brilliant, and the LSO is so adaptable." The London Symphony Orchestra is one of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras, having performed and recorded everything from the classics to the Star Wars soundtracks to pop albums by everyone from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Frank Zappa. The album was produced by Peter Collins, who also produced Nanci’s 1994 Grammy nominated album Flyer. "No one else could have done it. He knows music and he’s so patient, sitting there with his cigar like Edward G. Robinson," she adds with a laugh.

Also of note is the album cover, a painting by Nanci’s friend, painter/songwriter Susanna Clark. Clark has painted covers for her husband, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, and most recently, Willie Nelson’s Stardust. "I’d always wanted to have Susanna do a cover for me," Nanci says, "but when I asked her, she was reluctant. I brought her a tape anyway. She thought it was beautiful and told me the music and canvas just called out to her. She did it in one night and finished at five in the morning!" In the liner notes, Nanci comments, "Susanna’s painting expresses visually all that I could say about the making of The Dust Bowl Symphony."

Originally from Austin, Nanci began her career at age 14, when her "West Texas liberal" parents chaperoned her on the Austin club circuit. In the late '70s and early '80s Nanci brought her self-described "folkabilly" music to Nashville as one of the new generation of folk/country/pop artists which also included Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, and Steve Earle. During over twenty years of writing and performing, Griffith has gathered admirers among legendary artists (Bob Dylan requested Griffith perform at his anniversary concert) as well as the millions of fans she’s reached through relentless touring, playing everywhere from Texas honky-tonks to Norwegian National Symphony Hall to Albert Hall to Carnegie Hall.

Rolling Stone dubbed Nanci "the Queen of Folkabilly," while Telegraph Magazine called her "the torch-bearer of American folk music." Griffith’s body of work includes some of country music’s most enduring hits, including Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris’ "Gulf Coast Highway," Kathy Mattea’s "Love At The Five And Dime" and Suzy Bogguss’ "Outbound Plane," as well as over fifteen wonderfully literate and acclaimed solo albums. Career highlights include five Grammy nominations, her first nomination for The Last Of The True Believers in 1986 and her first win (for Best Contemporary Folk Performance) in 1993 for Other Voices, Other Rooms. She also has received two Grammys for her performances on albums by the Chieftains. Nanci has enjoyed superstar status in the UK and Ireland since her take on Julie Gold's "From A Distance" became a #1 hit there, five years before Bette Midler's version. In 1997 she celebrated ten years with the Blue Moon Orchestra on the acclaimed Blue Roses From The Moons, and in 1998 she released Other Voices, Too, the sequel to Other Voices, Other Rooms. She also published her first book, Nanci Griffith's Other Voices -- A Personal History of Folk Music, a companion to the Other Voices albums.

Nanci has performed The Dust Bowl Symphony at a number of live dates this year with U.S. symphonies, which, she says, "have been marvelous" -- but not without their quirks. "In Seattle, a union guy stopped the show because the stage temperature dropped below 63 degrees. The orchestra didn’t want to stop, but those are the rules! So the band and I said ‘the heck with it’ and played rock & roll for an hour. The audience loved it." Nanci will spend the rest of this summer touring with the Blue Moon Orchestra, then will do some symphony dates in December, followed by some spring dates with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Albert Hall in London.

The joyous conviction in these tracks, even in the sad songs, is tangible. As she recounts the experience of making the album and working with old and new friends, Nanci's enthusiasm is obvious and infectious. "It was amazing, so much fun," she says. "I’ve recently recovered from cancer, and there were times in the past couple of years where I had more will than way. But I felt really strong this time, which was a reflection of being well and of the energy and support in the room."

As for what’s next, "It’ll be a new Nanci Griffith album, with no hoopla," she says with some humor. "I’m already writing. But for now, I’m looking forward to this album bringing me to some new audiences. I want to let it find its own path."

Just like Nanci herself will continue to do, without a doubt.