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I'm really looking forward to seeing tonight at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 2 Folk Awards - she's getting a Lifetime Achievement Award and will be performing live too with her band.

I've heard she's going to sing the title track from her latest CD 'The Loving Kind', a terrific modern day folk song about the first inter-racial marriage in the USA. A video of Nanci's performance will be available to see online tomorrow, when you can also hear her on Drivetime with Simon Mayo.ÌýÌý

What first attracted me to Nanci Griffith's music was the way the pulse of truth came through in all her songs whether they were about small town love in 'Love at the Five and Dime', or about cruelty and racism in 'It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go.'

She seems to me to do what the folk world at its best - does best - she makes us feel more human - angry at times perhaps, sorrowful at others - but on everything from her love songs to her work with the Vietnam Veterans ofAmerica and the Landmines Advisory Group world she makes us feel, as the best folks songs do, that we are not alone.