For additional information on Andy, see Artist of the Month on CountryInterviewsOnline.net and click here for CD Review.

It’s really not hard to imagine Andy Griggs sitting back in a wooden rocking chair strumming a guitar on his back porch. Feet up, a hound beside him, he’s softly strumming and working out the melody and lyrics of another new song.  Describing himself as a “solitary person”, Louisiana born, Griggs talks like a real down-home country boy with a heavy southern drawl, but his romantic ballads and combination of musical styles indicates there’s a lot to this quiet guy.

Griggs’ new CD, “This I Gotta See”, is an enjoyable mix of everything – a bit of blue-grass, some gospel, Cajun, hard edge country and romantic ballads. It’s difficult to pin down a particular style, even for him.

“I sing straight from my soul and the influences in my life, especially the gospel part of the music,” explained Griggs during a recent interview from his home in Nashville. The new CD includes 2 songs he co-wrote and 9 others.

The CD’s first single was “She Thinks She Needs Me”, is a song that says, according to Griggs, something about “what guys want to say to girls, but just never do.”  As soon as he heard the song, he knew it would be included on the CD.

“I look for a great song, one that’s great even before I sing it.  It’s like going to a really good movie. You’re in the theater and so caught in the movie, you forget about everything outside of the movie – like its raining out or whatever. You are lost for that hour and half. A great song is like that for me.  You are lost in the music. It may not be one I wrote, but by the time I record the song or sing it on stage, I know it so well, it becomes so much a part of me, it's like I wrote it.”

That probably explains why so many of the new songs have an honesty to them. They seem to be a reflection of many influences in his life.  His father, who died when Griggs was 10, led the church choir; his brother Mason had a country-gospel band that Griggs took over after Mason’s death from a heart attach at the age of 21. He began his professional singing career with the gospel/bluegrass band, The Sullivans, His music is heavily influenced by his gospel roots.  The song “If Heaven”, scheduled to be his second single, looks at death and describes heaven in more hopeful terms then most country songs:

“If heaven was a pie it would be cherry.
Cool and sweet and heavy on your tongue
And just one bite would satisfy your hunger
And there’d always be enough for everyone.”

Griggs sings with a stronger voice on this CD. He appears to be surer of himself and his music.  There’s a definite edge to many of the songs, especially a bluesy, “No Mississippi” which includes vocals by Delbert McClinton and Bekka Bramlett.

“I might stagger, I might fall.
But I won’t beg and I won’t crawl.
A tear or two might fall into my shot of whisky.
But I won’t cry no Mississippi.” 

The song “I Never Had a Chance” is hot and gritty, but “Careful Where You Kiss Me” is  truly sexy – a video waiting to happen. The CD also includes a number of the romantic songs that Griggs does so well, including “Be Still” and “Why Do I Still Want You”.

 Griggs wrote/co-wrote 8 songs for this CD, but only 2 made the final cut.

“It's much easier taking my own songs out,” Griggs says.  “Songwriting is a passion and I love it, but I didn’t move to Nashville to write songs, I moved here to sing.”

The songs he left in are some of the best cuts.  His “My Kind of Beautiful”, describes his ideal woman. “She’s both, angel and sinner, extreme right and extreme left.” Griggs, recently divorced, says most of his songs only reveal who he is to a certain degree:

“In songs like, “Why Do I Still Want You?” I’m not necessarily singing about a particular girl left behind. It’s not always that true. Now, singing about riding along a highway and looking in the rearview mirror – well, yeah, that's more me. I’m kind of solitary. I like my private life private.”

However, we do get a glimpse of the man in “Hillbilly Band”. The song describes his first encounter with country music on the radio and finding success in Nashville. But the real joy in it is the music.

“The money, the cars, you can have that stuff.
Just give me what I love
To hear that crowd start screaming
To the song I’m singing”

“The first half of this song is really about my brother. The rest, yeah, there is nothing like going out on stage and hearing people yell. It’s great having them sing your song. I get pumped before the show and get energy from it.  You do small things different on stage each night.  It's never the same, you are constantly feeding off something – the audience, a good band.”

Griggs arrived in Nashville in 1995. He co-wrote his debut single which was the title cut of his first CD, "You Won’t Ever Be Lonely” released in 1998 and the single went number one. It was followed 2 years later by “Freedom”.  He had several singles from both CDs hit the top 10, including “Tonight I Want to Be Your Man” and “How Cool is That”.  Now less then 10 years later his third CD is moving up the charts. Has the fame changed him?

“Sometimes I feel like my dreams have all come true and then I know its time for a reality check.”

How do you do that?

“Well, you have to keep your world simple and small. Nashville and the outside can be surreal at times.  You have to remember you have to come home again and look outside and see the grass needs mowing or you need to call a plumber to fix the tank. Keep your circle small, simple.”

There is nothing simple about Andy Griggs or his music.