LOOKING as fragile as a butterfly, petite singer Nanci Griffith fluttered on to a York stage last night and won the hearts and minds of her audience with her American charm.

Acoustic guitar in hand, Griffith enhanced her reputation as "the queen of folkabilly" by performing, with her excellent band, songs from her latest album, Hearts In Mind, plus popular titles from her impressive back catalogue, which stretches back to the 1970s.

Griffith may look fragile, having twice fought off cancer, but she displays the indomitable spirit of a fighter.

She is a campaigner as well as an accomplished performer and war is on her mind. The bestselling album Hearts In Mind is dedicated to "the memory of every soldier and every civilian lost to the horrors of war".

She wrote the haunting Heart Of Indochine to mark this year's 30th anniversary of the end of America's ham-fisted military involvement in Vietnam.

The song Before takes a swipe at the Bush administration for creating a corrosive climate of anxiety and fear with its "war on terror" while a powerful rendition of her memorable hit From A Distance continued the concert's anti-war theme.

Griffith turned from chilling global politics to the warmth of the family home with her song Beautiful, which she wrote as a tribute to her 82-year-old stepfather who performed with Woody Herman and Hoagy Carmichael. Her performance of it features scatting which, according to Ella Fitzgerald, is the singer's equivalent of standing naked on stage because it's so revealing.

Artistic intimacy and integrity... from a distance.

Updated: 11:17 Saturday, April 16, 2005