Jeff Griffith - If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another 
Review By: George Peden, CSO Staff Journalist

“This is the album I’ve always dreamed of making…”
Jeff Griffith

Lovers of traditional country are gonna perk their ears when they hear Jeff Griffith. Out with his debut, If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another, the album is a welcome listen to the rack of albums nestled on country charts at the moment. If you’re tired of guys with no shoes and no shirts, duos more pop than country, and hair and hat acts shoveling the same formulated thang, it’s time to look further a field.

Jeff Griffith doesn’t fit the mold of a hunk in a hat; there’s no airbrushing here; no manufactured point of sale, no Nashville country. What’s on offer is real. It’s a voice soaked in tradition. It’s a voice, a strong but tender baritone, which pulls back on the memories of just how good a good song is when it’s done with passion and talent. And across this album of 11 cuts, Griffith keenly shows plenty of that. For this Santa Fe, Texas raised kid who was given a guitar at 7 by his parents, to his later love of Jones and Gosdin, to the envied stage theatrics of Hank Jr, Griffith has long been inspired to make a country album.

Now he has. And, as a listener, I’m glad.

This guy can sing. Griffith’s version of Gary Stewart’s hit, “Drinkin’ Thing”, shows, even after all these years, that song, Griffith’s rendition, is classic. A cut from George Strait song provider Dean Dillon brings more of the magic. “Holed Up In Some Honky Tonk” powers along. With a tight band of session players, a host of lyrically crafted and memorable tunes and Joe Stampley in the production booth, Griffith has crafted a winning album here.

If you want heartache, it’s here. If you’re looking for a laugh, again, you’ll find it here. If you want to hear music that comforts the often sweet and painful truth of love and life, then, this is your album.

A tender moment, and there are plenty, come on “She Reminds Me Of You” – an emotional tune of reflection that had Griffith, publicity tells us, reduced to tears in the studio. Listen out also for “Let’s Make Love Tonight Like There’s No Tomorrow”, “Tonight Was Made For The Two Of Us” and the fiddle and steel ache of “It Was Always So Easy”, a tale of barroom deceit and home front lies. 

“Fishin’ Forever” is a charged toe-tapper, as is the tune highlighting the familiar, that being, “If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another”. The Tom Botkin/Kevin Denny/Billy Craven co-write, “I’m Your Radio”, which is the current single, best sums up the talent on this collectable.

“…Are you drivin, are you driftin’, are you dreamin’, no matter what you’re going through, I’ve got a song for you, from fast to slow…I’m your radio.”

The album is out now on Arrowhead Records.