Two years ago, after nearly a decade of work, Raleigh’s Tift Merritt had in Bramble Rose what many critics believed was the year’s best release by a debut artist of any genre. Rumors abounded that the next Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams had been found.
After a brief, tumultuous period in which Merritt lost two members of her backing band and confronted the traditional sophomore-record blues, she has produced Tambourine, a collection of 12, tightly woven songs of twanged-out soul.
A singer-songwriter steeped in the roots of rock tradition, Merritt writes songs that might sound like the typical alt-country vignettes about longing and heartache, except she infuses each word with a stylized yet heartfelt nuance. Along the lines of a softer-edged Williams or Norah Jones, Merritt breathes—sometimes breathily sings—genuine feeling. This time—an after-effect of her live shows, Merritt said—she’s even doing it with a tinge of honky-tonked rhythm and blues.
“The album is just a natural growth of my music,” Merritt said. “My main goal here was just to get a real sense of joy and abandon on tape.”
With George Drakoulias producing, icons like McKee and Jayhawk Gary Louris guesting, backup singers crooning, horns blaring, and the occasional tambourine, of course, doing its shimmy, Merritt achieves that sense of joy and abandon on an album full of wistful recollections and whispered, bittersweet nothings.
From the starting point of the record, “Stray Paper,” a track propelled solely by Merritt’s pained yet powerful vocals and a bare acoustic backing, Tambourine proves its merit. Working purely from the heart, Merritt never lets up through countrified ballads and full-throttle kiss-offs. Although the album’s flawless melodies form the backbone of Merritt’s music, they’re complemented by her meaningful lyrics.
That doesn’t mean that they came easy though. Trying to come up with some sort of musical or lyrical idea, Merritt hones her writing while sitting at the piano.
“There are no rules when writing a song,” she said. “All bets are totally off.”
On Tambourine, however, she has succeeded. On “Write My Ticket,” Merritt sings, “This city must belong to someone/ But it don’t belong to me” and instantly fashions a story of fitting into a new place, all the while missing home. The new record also contains her raciest lyrics to date with “I am your tambourine/ Shake me with your love tonight” from the title track.
Although on Tambourine, she has progressed from where she stood on her debut, Merritt still frets—if just a little bit. She’s not all that comfortable with being labeled as a country musician, even though she confessed that “Alt-country has made a space for artists like me.” Merritt’s also expressed concern about an industry where success equals millions of records sold. For Merritt, whose Bramble Rose only sold 50,000 copies, success is more determined by word of mouth.
And she duly appreciates her home base: “[The Triangle is] a very healthy music scene simply because it’s away from the record industry and that musket sign: ‘You must have a hit.’”
At the same time, Merritt realizes the long journey that she’s taken after being signed to Lost Highway Records and releasing two albums.
“First time that we played [South by Southwest], we performed on one of those tiny stages,” Merritt said, reflecting on her experiences at the annual Austin, Tex., music festival, “where you know the sound man doesn’t care anything about who you are.” Since then, she’s played at one of South by Southwest’s largest venues alongside legends Lucinda Williams and Willie Nelson.
And, as she leaves the country for Rome to shoot the music video for Tambourine’s first single, “Good Hearted Man,” she remarks, “It feels pretty great right now.”
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