Tift Merritt

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Tift Merritt

Background information
Birth name Catherine Tift Merritt[1]
Born January 8, 1975 (1975-01-08) (age 35)
Houston, Texas, USA
Origin Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Genres Folk, Rock, Alternative country
Occupations Singer-songwriter
Instruments Voice
Guitar
Keyboards
Harmonica
Years active 1998–present
Labels Lost Highway, Fantasy
Website www.tiftmerritt.com

Catherine Tift Merritt (born January 8, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and North Carolina native. With her longtime band, she has built what has been called a "unique" and critically-acclaimed body of work of "sonic short stories and poignant performances."[2] She has been compared to songwriters like Joni Mitchell[3] and Emmylou Harris.[4]

Merritt has released two studio albums for Lost Highway Records and two for Fantasy Records. Her live albums so far are Home Is Loud released in 2005 and Buckingham Solo released in 2009.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Merritt was born in Houston but her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina soon after. Her father taught her guitar chords and how to play piano by ear to Percy Sledge and Bob Dylan songs, and she sang harmonies with him as a child.[5] His eclectic record collection of soul, folk, R&B, rock, and country records influenced her both then and later; she credits his "genreless" taste with influencing her to write and perform without regard to genre herself.[6]

In her early twenties, though she had gigged by herself, Merritt has said she decided she was better suited for writing short stories. She enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study creative writing. There, she met Zeke Hutchins, whose band had just taken a haitus and who had decided to become a school teacher. "With his encouragement and a big box of LPs from the '70s,"[7] they stared a band. Hutchins set up his drums in the kitchen of the farmhouse Merritt was living in, and they practiced songs at her piano.

Merritt began her professional career with her band The Carbines playing small clubs in Chapel Hill and Raleigh such as The Cave, Cat's Cradle, and the front porch of the General Store in Bynum, NC.[8] In 1998 The Carbines released a 7-inch single, "Jukejoint Girl" b/w "Cowboy". In 1999, Merritt made a guest appearance on a 7-song EP with the Two Dollar Pistols, led by John Howie, Jr. The EP featured two original songs and five covers.[9] In 2000, she won MerleFest's Chris Austin Songwriting Contest,[10] found a manager, and signed a contract with Lost Highway Records.

In 2002, Merritt released her debut album, Bramble Rose, comprised of 11 original songs, recorded with her long-time band and produced by Ethan Johns. The record landed on Time (magazine)'s and The New Yorker's Top Ten lists, and was called the best debut of the year in any genre by The Associated Press.[11] A song from the album, Trouble Over Me, was featured in Nick Hornby's 31 Songs.[12] Merritt and her band toured behind Bramble Rose, and Merritt opened for fellow North Carolinian Ryan Adams, who had helped her secure her first management and record contracts.[13]

Her follow-up release, 2004's Tambourine, was produced by roots rock producer George Drakoulias and featured backing by Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell (of the Heartbreakers) and Don Heffington (of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band and Lone Justice). Tambourine was honored with a 2004 Country Album of the Year Grammy nomination, though it was frequently described in quite different terms, such as "rock-soul throwdown."[14] In 2005, Merritt and Tambourine were also nominated for three Americana Music Awards by the Americana Music Association: Album of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year for "Good Hearted Man".[15] The Tambourine tour toured with Elvis Costello and recorded Austin City Limits--a performance later released as a DVD by New West Records.[16] The sold-out homecoming concert for the tour--at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina--was recorded for a live album release; Home Is Loud was released in 2005 and re-released by the German label Blue Rose Records with bonus tracks in November 2009.[17]

After extensive touring behind Tambourine, Merritt rented an apartment in Paris, where she wrote the songs that would become 2008's Another Country album.[18] Before signing with a new label and making that record, Merritt performed Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" at the I'm Not There tribute concert at New York City's Beacon Theater on November 7, 2007, with guitarist Joe Henry. According to the New York Times review, Merritt had "the night's purest voice."[19]

Released on Fantasy Records in 2008, Another Country featured the core of Merritt's long-time band, along with guitarist Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan), and again with George Drakoulias at the helm. Another Country continued the trend of high-profile favorable press for Merritt's releases. Emmylou Harris said, "I first heard Tift Merritt some years ago during a writers' night at a small club. She stood out like a diamond in a coal patch and everyone there knew she carried a promise of great things to come. She has more than fulfilled that promise with Another Country." Paste magazine gave the album a four-star review, calling Merritt "a force to be reckoned with in any genre she approaches."[20] The song "Broken" from Another Country was nominated for an Americana Music Award for Song of the Year.[21] The Another Country tour played the Newport Folk Festival, Bonaroo, the Edmonton Folk Festival, and MerleFest. On the Another Country tour, Merritt made runs in both the U.S. and the UK with fellow singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson.[22]

Buckingham Solo, recorded in England, is an intimate acoustic solo concert recording made during the Another Country touring, and released on the Fantasy label in April 2009.[23]

Please Break the Silence of the Middle of the Night, an EP for the iTunes download music service, was released later in 2008.[24] The EP contains two alternate versions of songs from Another Country, a George Harrison cover ("I Live For You"), an outtake from the Another Country sessions ("Last To Know"), and "Wayward And Weary," recorded for the film Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Performance highlights of the later Another Country tour and immediately after it included opening an outdoor show in Santa Monica, California for folk icon Joan Baez,[25] opening the Pine Cone Winter Music Festival in her hometown of Raleigh for Kris Kristofferson,[26] and singing the U.S. national anthem for Senator Barack Obama at his last campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina before winning the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.[27]

Merritt recorded the follow-up to 2008's Another Country at Overdub Lane in Durham with producer Tucker Martine. The album, See You On The Moon, was released June 1, 2010 on Fantasy Records. My Morning Jacket frontman Yim Yames (Jim James) is featured on the track "Feel of the World."[28] Again, the pop music press placed Merritt's record in a long tradition of highly-regarded songcraft; a review in The New Yorker compared specific moments on the record to the music of Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins, and U2;[29] and The Wall Street Journal included her in a weekend feature on singer-songwriters, placing her ". . . in the tradition of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Leonard Cohen.[30]

Touring for Moon began in June of 2010 and is scheduled to continue through the fall of 2010. In addition to headlining dates in North America and the UK, Merritt has supported or will support Emmylou Harris, Amos Lee, Josh Ritter, Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, David Gray, and Ray LaMontagne.[31]

Merritt is also a photographer; her first gallery exhibition, Other Countries, ran at The Mahler Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina in May 2009. She also hosts an artist-to-artist interview radio show called The Spark with Tift Merritt which is produced by KRTS in Marfa, Texas, and whose guests have included Nick Hornby, Kiki Smith, Emmylou Harris, poet C. K. Williams and Merge Records and Superchunk co-founder Mac McCaughan.[32] Episodes of The Spark stream on the show's website and are available as a free podcast.

In 2009, Merritt married Zeke Hutchins, her band's drummer and her long-time partner in New York City, where they currently reside.[33]

[edit] Film & TV

In addition to Austin City Limits, Merritt has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman. Her music has appeared in The L Word, Men In Trees, United States of Tara and the film New in Town. She has also written two songs for the upcoming animated film Dorothy of Oz, starring Lea Michele and Dan Akroyd, set for release in early 2011.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2008). Hot Country Songs 1944 to 2008. Record Research, Inc. p. 275. ISBN 0-89820-177-2. 
  2. ^ http://wxrt.radio.com/2010/06/02/full-album-tift-merritt-see-you-on-the-moon/
  3. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164904575421813516451790.html?KEYWORDS=Tift+Merritt
  4. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/recordings/2010/06/14/100614gore_GOAT_recordings_greenman
  5. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll
  6. ^ http://www.louisville.com/content/interview-tift-merritt-brings-soulful-rock-louisvilles-waterfront-wednesday-music
  7. ^ http://www.wfpk.org/waterfront-wednesday-july-2009/
  8. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88570718
  9. ^ http://store.yeproc.com/artist.php?id=750
  10. ^ http://www.merlefest.org/content.aspx?id=44
  11. ^ http://www.grandcentralmusic.com/music/
  12. ^ Nick Hornby, 31 Songs (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2003), p. 193.
  13. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53152-2005Apr14.html
  14. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4146090
  15. ^ http://abccountry.net.au/artist/tift-merritt
  16. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Live-Austin-TX-Tift-Merritt/dp/B000VI4UUC
  17. ^ http://www.bluerose-records.de/
  18. ^ http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/i-felt-like-another-country-myself-an-interview-with-tift-merritt
  19. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/arts/09dylan-sub.html
  20. ^ http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/assets/documents01/Artists/Tift-Merritt/FAN-31965-02/See-You-On-The-Moon-Bio-And-Album-Credits-Hi.pdf
  21. ^ http://folkmusic.about.com/od/awardsetc1/qt/Americana2008.htm
  22. ^ http://www.livedaily.com/news/tift-merritt-tickets-and-tour-dates-tift-merritt-keeps-working-the-road-14373.html
  23. ^ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DEZTJ8/ref=s9_simh_gw_p340_i6?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=01QRN13H9M3ZHPW2MK4B&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846
  24. ^ http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/please-break-silence-middle/id290378257
  25. ^ http://www.santamonicadispatch.com/2009/07/joan-baez-appears-on-pier-tonight/
  26. ^ http://www.pinecone.org/wintermusicfest.html
  27. ^ http://blogs.newsobserver.com/beat/tift-merritt-sings-for-change
  28. ^ http://music.mync.com/2010/03/tift-merritts-see-you-on-the-moon-gets-tracked-and-covered/
  29. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/recordings/2010/06/14/100614gore_GOAT_recordings_greenman
  30. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164904575421813516451790.html?KEYWORDS=Tift+Merritt
  31. ^ http://www.tiftmerritt.com/calendar/
  32. ^ http://www.tiftmerritt.net/Biography.aspx
  33. ^ Jones, Amy (2010-07-16). "Tift Merritt makes her own brand of music at Asheville's Orange Peel". Asheville Citizen-Times. http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100716/ENT/307160006/1005/ent. Retrieved 2010-07-16. 

[edit] External links

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