Howie Klein at Huffington Post has the details on Nanci Griffith’s new album and performance at the Grammy Museum in LA this week, which is part of a new program called “The Drop.” She got a five minute standing ovation. Her album is a must-have, as he explains here.
As to “The Drop”:
The Museum’s “Drop” program picked Nanci as their first artist because they are also running a compelling and unique exhibition, “Songs Of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom,” which explores the whole 200-year history of music and politics in America. The exhibition was the brain child of the Grammy Museum, bringing together more than 100 diverse artifacts, from both government archives and private collections, as well as from myriad musical artists who have participated in social movements during the last century. They use rare film footage and photos to explore the depth to which music has been, and still is, a political force in American society.
The exhibition is going to start traveling around the U.S. early next year. It includes guitars owned by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Josh White and Odetta, one of Pete Seeger’s banjos, handwritten lyrics from Patti Smith, Tom Morello, Tim McGraw and others and, my favorite, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI summary of the MC5.