Patty Griffin and Max Gomez at the Sooner Theatre

The Show

Singer-song­writer Singer-song­writer Patty Griffin returned to Norman’s Sooner Theatre for a nearly sold-out per­for­mance in late October. Mercury Photo Bureau was on hand to cover the con­cert. [Sidenote: Thanks to Nicole Hauer and Stephanie Flick of Nashville’s Vector Management for clear­ing the way for me to pho­to­graph.]

Since catch­ing the pub­lic ear with her sopho­more release, Flaming Red, the fiery-haired chanteuse has released a string of well-received record­ings, while simul­ta­ne­ously main­tain­ing a career as an in-demand backup vocal­ist for such artists as Robert Plant, Joshua Radin, Dierks Bentley and Todd Snider.

Patty has col­lab­o­rated with many notable musi­cians, includ­ing Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and Regina and Ann McCrary, and her songs have been fea­tured on numer­ous pop­u­lar TV shows and motion pictures.

Griffin’s set shifted from down-tempo, quiet bal­lads (Railroad Wings) to gut-wrench­ing, dis­torted blues (the spine-tin­gling, short-hairs-rais­ing Flaming Red). During the numer­ous gui­tar re-tun­ings (a result of her hard play­ing on the rau­cous rock­ers), she kept the audi­ence enter­tained with sto­ries about grow­ing up and of life as a tour­ing musi­cian, and with back­sto­ries to the songs.

Max Gomez

Hailing from Taos, NM, singer Max Gomez opened for Patty with a slew of self-penned tunes. Often fea­tur­ing opaque lyrics, the songs draw from a deep well of tra­di­tional folk and blues — Gomez acknowl­edges the influ­ence of the past (Lead Belly, “Big” Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson). But he also owes much to con­tem­po­rary mas­ters of the acoustic folk + singer-song­writer veins (Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, John Hiatt).

Max’s mother, Tonia, was present for the show; see the gallery for her por­trait. His debut CD, Rule the World, is avail­able for pre-order on Amazon. His debut sin­gle, Run from You, is avail­able on iTunes now.

Gallery: Patty Griffin

Gallery: Max Gomez