Patty Griffin is never going to make it "big," no matter how exquisitely beautiful her music is.

She's too bluesy to cut it as an alt-country chick, too hook-less to grace the adult alternative airwaves and too sparse to charm the Pitchfork-lovin' indies who think there ain't nothin' better than some prep-school punks who play real loud.

With 1996's Living With Ghosts, a raw acoustic-and-vocals affair, Griffin wailed onto the scene, turning some fine-tuned ears with her Boston-bred Nashville twang and vulnerable storytelling. But eight years later, at the time of her current release (and fourth studio album), Impossible Dream, Griffin is no closer to attracting that commercial level of eminence her craft truly warrants.

Griffin is the latest in a line of singer-songwriters who embrace the past and lead folk music gently by the hand into an elegant future flourishing with down-on-the-Delta attitude, austere emotional lyricism and narratives of motherless children, postcards that never come and weekend sections that have this town way over-rated. Impossible Dream is Americana and gospel ("Love Throws a Line"); it's country and pop ("Top of the World"), personal and political ("Cold as It Gets"), lulling and lilting and unconditionally gorgeous ("Rowing Song").

Rolling Stone, MTV, Dull Rock FM and quite possibly you have yet to catch on to Griffin's dynamic musical brilliance. But a tour with Emmylou Harris, a live DVD that's selling mighty well for a small-time release and a collaborative friendship with country music's coolest grrrls The Dixie Chicks all say that Griffin must be doing something right.

Maybe that dream ain't so impossible after all.

-- Reviewed by Caralyn Green