Raised in Kentucky, then fifteen happy years playing in Los Angeles and enjoying the sunshine, I have resided in London since 1992. The Coal Porters are three of the coolest people on the planet plus little ole me for a total of five alt-bluegrass all-stars.
Play your cards right and you can be our doghouse bass player as the Coal Porters ARE LOOKING FOR A BASSIST right now!
Influences
My influences are not dollar-driven but include the Fireside Chats, the colors of autumn, March Madness, the sounds of goodbye and the audacity of hope.
Sounds Like
a cruise ship full of old friends dancing to a bluegrass band playing songs written by Strummer and Jones.
Alas I have had to shave the beard. 'Tis gone...and with it many happy memories of ageing drunks in pubs mistaking me for the late George Best.
"Hey, Sid Griffin" is by Invisible Republik who used to be The Heyze and are from the north of England. Their own MySpace link is below in the Friends section. The second song, "Sid" is by a wonderful Toronto band called Shortwave who I heartily recommend to all! Check 'em out via MySpace by clicking on Friends below!
Sid Griffin does not have grey in his hair. Look closely, it is silver. And yes, that was Our Hero on the BBC's Today with John Humphries for all of a minute on July 4, 2008! Thanks to everyone who saw my Coal Porters play such a sweet gig at Glastonbury too.
The Ballad Of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest is a Dylan song from JWHarding I improvised as a finale at a Feb 2008 Basement Tapes reading/gig I did with the great Rod Clements who was in Lindisfarne.
I Tell Her All The Time (1966 re-mix) is me live in Spain January 2008 and the remix is by my pal Tony Poole of Starry-Eyed & Laughing, a fine band up right there with the Sons Of Adam and the Blues Poets. Thanks, Tony!
Currently Sid is writing the second book of his Dylan trilogy, this one on Bob's Rolling Thunder Review/Renaldo & Clara years. The book will be published in September 2009.
Sid Griffin is the proud author of the 94,000 word book MILLION DOLLAR BASH: Bob Dylan, The Band & The Basement Tapes (Jawbone Press, USA/UK). The book tells what Dylan was up to from his motorcycle crash on in July 1966 to the release of John Wesley Harding eighteen months later and also deftly explores the Hawks morphing into The Band during 1967. With interviews from Robbie Robertson, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Manfred Mann, Band producer John Simon and many others MILLION DOLLAR BASH is an exhilarating ride. Reviews have been terrific so far with one critic writing, "this book maybe Griffin's greatest single work, his greatest contribution to contemporary culture from his lifetime spent deep in the archives and out on the streets."
Sid's mighty Coal Porters bluegrass band have a fine CD out called Turn The Water On, Boy! which has received killer reviews in Word, Uncut, Mojo, Maverick, Q, Classic Rock and The Sunday Times! They record the follow up CD this April 2009 in Colorado USA with Ed Stasium. (You can hear and see the Coal Porters via TV clips at last summer's festivals
on their own snazzy MySpace site!)
Author Griffin was a proud member of the Long Ryders who performed their first US gigs in 23 years January 9/10, 2009 in Atlanta...clips of which are already uploaded on YouTube!! Today he lives in London, England where he plays bluegrass mandolin with the aforementioned Coal Porters and writes for Mojo and the BBC. Griffin wears many hats, some of which fit better than others, none of which are beige. Yet.
Sid Griffin has finished editing footage of the Long Ryders 2004 reunion tour for a DVD release in spring 2009. The CD of that Long Ryders tour is already released via Prima Records, is globally distributed by Proper Music and is entitled Live 2004: State Of Our Reunion.
In addition to all this he is still playing the occasional solo acoustic show and has performed a series of MILLION DOLLAR BASH readings/lectures/performances so these are busy times indeed for the artist referred to by BBC Radio One as "a rock'n'roll Renaissance man" and by Ireland's Hot Press as "The Great Enthusiast".
Sid Griffin, Long Ryders and Coal Porters music is available via Prima Records CDs or your favorite MP3 download site such as iTunes and eMusic. Check out the IODA website for a host of Sid, Ryders and CPs' downloadable music!
In addition to those tasks Sid Griffin was Resident Musicologist on Mark Radcliffe's excellent BBC Radio Two show, consultant and interviewee on the Mark Lamarr's recent BBC Radio series Redneck Music as well as becoming known more and more as a record producer.
Sid is also a freelance journalist having written for The Guardian, Mojo, Q, BAM, The Los Angeles Times, Country Music International, Ruta 66, Music Week and a host of other publications. As a rock'n'roll archivist he has overseen reissue projects for the Everly Bros., Long John Baldry, Dolly Parton, Arthur Lee, Nils Lofgren, his friend the late Gene Clark, Michael Nesmith, the Flying Burrito Bros., Gram Parsons, Phil Ochs, his old band the Long Ryders, Joe Ely, Steve Young and his dear sweet pal the late, great Ronnie Lane, amongst others, while participating in the reissue of many other albums.
And yes, Sid was once a DJ on Mean Country Radio 1035AM, hosting a very popular Thursday night bluegrass show and a Saturday afternoon C&W honky tonk show. He makes a mean banana walnut pancake. He can juggle too. Really!
Yet it is for his activities as a musician and songwriter that Griffin is best known. Having founded and named the Long Ryders back in 1982 Griffin was their ringleader during their long hard ride and he wrote and sang the band's biggest single, "Looking For Lewis And Clark".
A few years after the Long Ryders disbanded Sid relocated from Los Angeles to London, taking the name of his new band with him: the Coal Porters. Based in London since February 1992 the Coal Porters started out as a Long Ryders Mk. II but are now an all acoustic five piece playing uptempo folk and bluegrass.
In addition he started Western Electric, the alt-country band to beat all alt-country bands. Their debut album in the year 2000 was Mojo magazine's Americana Album Of The Month. Best described as "Portishead meet Wilco" Western Electric is the world's first Country & Eastern band, crossing straight C&W with psychedelia to great effect.
His work as a record producer has led him to produce tracks for Lindisfarne, Eric Burdon, the Flying Hendersons, France's indie heros Les Bayrues and young alt-country diva Esther Mae. His production of the 1998 Lindisfarne studio album, "Here Comes The Neighborhood", helped give the classic Geordie band what many consider their best release yet.
And during all this Griffin has been performing as a solo acoustic troubadour, at first in support of his two solo CDs "Little Victories" and the more recent "As Certain As Sunrise". This long awaited album is readily found in the shops, can be downloaded easily from many sources and will then reside in your heart forever.
If it seems like a full schedule that's because Sid Griffin has a full life. This is a man whose best Geordie friend says "Sid Griffin isn't happy unless he is doing five things at once". Griffin is always involved in one project or another be it a new album, a tour, research for a CD reissue or working with the BBC on a TV documentary such as the recent collaboration with Gandulf Hennig on Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel.
He lives in north London with his daughter Esther Mae Griffin, his rare guitar collection, a rare Beatles 78rpm from India and a frog named Juan Marichal. He has never met Linda Evangelista, Heidi Klum or Marisa Miller but in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in October 1974 when Sid had very long hair he shook the hand of bluegrass hero and ace mandolinist Bill Monroe who was cordial to chat to yet kept calling him "Sue Griffin".
Yeah, the ad for the thing looked kind of goofy. When I play in Germany, they show up in chaps with cap guns. It's the damndest thing you ever saw.
We're releasing a single next month on CDX UK. "The Last Song". Hopefully, we can drum up some interest that way. It's worked for some fellow Yanks. We'll see. Excited to see you in March!
Hey Sid, how's the Dylan book coming along? Can't wait to read it when it's all done. I'm currently reading Barney Hoskins Waiting for the Sun. Your band the Long Ryders gets quite a few mentions throughout the book. Peace to you.
Hey there. Cool...u r playing mando! I am playing a bit with the Arlene Kole Band. I love it as well as playing the Irish tuned tenor banjo. Cheers, oh...no dye, I wouldn't pick this color. :)
Hey Sid - thanks for friendship and welcome aboard! And oh, yeah, Bremen - Leipzig are some miles to go and I even didn't know it that you were there! What a shame ;-) Really dig your music the same as I did some 25 years ago when the Ryders were a big influence on me! Funny, how all the rockers (me too ;-) slowly get into the real stuff! Keep up that good work and I'm looking forward to hear from you! Best! Stefan
we are london based north americans (two americans, one canadian), but kind of are dispersed everywhere. we regroup for tours a few times a year. next one after the summer is in the fall. maybe we can do something then! -groanbox
Thanks for the kind words. You know, sometimes one has to make more time for oneself. For various reasons. So the gigs have had to be scaled down. But we'll be back. Not every week. But we won't completely go away. Cheers.
Hi- just stoppin' by to say thanks for the add and also- i really like your songs- They're great!! I have one of your albums from a few years back- really cool- All the best- Mister D.
Thanks for adding me...and JD Souther, hands down! Any implication that I'm biased because he was born in my home town will be strenuously (and honestly!) denied.
Yeah its funny though, imagine living there and having to give your address as “Booty Drive” to some copper when you get pulled over for speeding or something, haha, they’d probably just throw you in jail! The T-shirt I’m wearing says “Southbound Southern Rock” and it’s an eagle’s head on the design, my mate Barry designed it for us and Rob screen printed it in our shed. We did quite a few T-shirts a few years back and sold them at the clubs. I remember we used to do Sin City at the Albany and people would bug me all the time when I was deejaying to try them on, I felt like a bloomin’ sales assistant. You’d always get some big drunken bloke who wanted a Size 10 Ladies top in pink, I’d try and get them to buy a mens large but they would insist on the Size 10 – then go into the loo and come back wearing it stretched to buggery over the top of their shirt - probably woke up the next morning with a hangover from hell and trying to remember what happened the night before! So let that be a lesson to you.
Hi Sid, I see you've been takin a stroll down Booty Drive. Cant fault you.. Hows tricks?? Hope you well! Would be nice to hook up over the summer. lOVE Kath and Paul xx
I'm digging AS CERTAIN AS SUNRISE, Sid! Fresh melodies, pastoral, a lovely soundtrack for the early spring we're having here in Nashville. Thanks so much for sharing. Peace, love and 12 year old bourbon-Jefferson
Thanks so much Sid! Hope y'all well and hope to see you soon. Bob and I were just chatting about what a great guy you are just the other day. Genevieve x
