The Fundamental Things Apply

By STEVE APPLEFORD

May 30, 2002 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Patty Griffin likes things simple. The singer-songwriter is not afraid of machines and computers but is just a little concerned about her dependence on them, even becoming suspicious of the power windows in her car. So in her music, she wants to strip things down, to send the songs back to a basic, intimate core.

It’s a feeling reflected in the ballads of her newest album, “1000 Kisses,” and a tour that has her subdued, blues-flavored voice accompanied only by acoustic guitar, mandolin, cello and keyboards. (She plays tonight at the Troubadour.)

She is not alone, as it turns out. The recent success of the chart-topping, Grammy-winning film soundtrack of folk and bluegrass for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” revealed a wide audience for pure, unadorned music that Griffin finds encouraging. Like those listeners, she prefers her music home-grown.

“It’s sort of like being able to go out and grow your own food,” she says. “That kind of music, anybody can do it. You don’t need money. You pick up a guitar and open your mouth and sing. It’s reassuring to me that it’s alive and well and of interest to people.”

The acclaimed Griffin already has her own dedicated following, including the likes of Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks, who have recorded Griffin songs on their albums. Most recently, Griffin’s “My Dear Old Friend” was recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter for the soundtrack to “We Were Soldiers.”

Griffin is now with ATO Records (distributed by BMG) after leaving Interscope, which had absorbed her original label, A&M.; “1000 Kisses,” which came out last month to the usual critical acclaim, was recorded last year, mostly in the Nashville basement studio of Doug Lancio, who co-produced the album with Griffin in search of music that focused mainly on the emotions within her voice.

One track, the bittersweet “Making Pies,” was the one song to survive from “Summer Bell,” a lushly produced album she recorded in 2000 for A&M; that was never released. It explores the life of a woman factory worker dealing with changing life and changing priorities.

“I want to tell a story with my records,” Griffin says. “Growing up, I felt like I could lie on the floor after everyone had gone to bed and put some headphones on and listen to an album and be carried away. It would sort of feed my life.”

Artists who have had that effect on Griffin include Rickie Lee Jones and Bruce Springsteen, whose “Stolen Car” is performed on the new album.

Griffin was drawn to the Springsteen song, though it was clearly written from the perspective of a male protagonist, because it captured “that thing where you feel that you’re totally at the end of your rope. It’s hard to get that down in a way that feels real. He got it, and it’s a really amazing song.”

Griffin has often performed other writers’ songs in her shows, but “1000 Kisses” is her first album to include material she didn’t write herself. There is also Lonnie Johnson’s 1948 R&B; hit “Tomorrow Night” (learned from a 1992 Bob Dylan recording) and “Mil Besos” (Spanish for “1000 Kisses”), a Tejano ballad recorded at the suggestion of keyboardist Michael Ramos.

Griffin does not speak Spanish, but Ramos coached her through the subtle shadings of lyric and inflection, and Griffin found the exercise liberating.

“It sort of takes you to a different place vocally,” she says. “Different things came out of my voice, things that I hadn’t heard before. I get real excited when someone who’s Latino comes up and gives me the nod on it.”

Born in 1964 in Old Town, Maine, Griffin spent years in the Northeast before moving to Nashville, then settling into Austin three years ago. She plans to stay there a while and is now making plans to begin work on another album next year. But accelerating technology is already getting her down.

The singer normally tries out the occasional song-in-progress on stage. “Unfortunately, as soon as I do that, it’s on the Internet the next day,” she laments. “It kind of bums me out. It takes the thrill out of it a little bit--I’m still working on this stuff!”

Griffin may be striving for escape from machines, but her fans at least are unafraid of computers. “No,” she says with a laugh. “They know how to use it really well.”

Patty Griffin, with Maia Sharp, tonight at the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, 8 p.m. $20. (310) 276-6168.