Rounder / Umgd
2006
Ruby's Torch
About This Album
In her brief liner essay, Nanci Griffith claims that Ruby's Torch -- a collection of torch songs, what else? -- is a "dream come true" and something her listeners have requested over the years. Fair enough, but in typical fashion Griffith has put a spin on these nuggets, only two of which are her own compositions (old ones at that). In addition to "Brave Companion of the Road" and "Late Night Grande Hotel," there are three songs by Tom Waits (including his classic "Ruby's Arms," which the album title is adapted from), Jimmy Webb's "If These Walls Could Talk," Sandy Mason's "When I Dream" (the best-known version is by Willie Nelson, but Crystal Gayle's is better), "Bluer Than Blue" by Randy Goodrum (and a hit by Michael Johnson in the '70s), and "Never Be the Sun" by Donagh Long. In other words, what this amounts to is a recontextualizing of songs not normally in the torch repertoire. There's a great argument for Waits, given his songs' now common treatment by singers in this way. To show the juxtaposition, there is one honest-to-goodness tune from the canon in the David Mann/Bob Hilliard number "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," which headed a concept album in the 1950s by Frank Sinatra after his breakup with Ava Gardner (and was the closer on Griffith's own Clock Without Hands in 2001).
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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