Local music legend Tift Merritt stopped by Live & Local this week, following the release of a pair of albums: the 20th-anniversary re-release of her Grammy-nominated sophomore album “Tambourine,” and a new album, “Time and Patience,” featuring new songs and other recordings from the Tambourine era.
Tift Merritt is not usually one for retrospectives – “I’m much more a fan of looking forward than I am of looking backwards,” she says – but she’s relishing the opportunity to look back with new eyes on a period in her life and career that was both difficult and triumphant at the same time.
“It’s very, very sweet and deeply personal to share this sort of back-of-house process of Tambourine, because it was a tough go at the time,” she says. “And listening back, I feel a little bit of vindication.”
“Tambourine” earned a great deal of immediate acclaim, including a surprise Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. But behind the scenes, Merritt says, the process of recording and releasing the album was also an eye-opening look into the slings and arrows of the major-label record industry.
“Tambourine seemed like an amazingly shiny moment, but behind the scenes it was really a struggle,” she says. “I was told I could not be an Americana artist, because there was no money in it. I think they just thought I should be a mainstream country star, and I was just always me…
“I (wanted) to show up and do a good job and put goodness into the world, and (I understood) that I had this amazing chance to do something, but it was very complicated….And then (the label) dropped me. The record business is a weird place.”
But Tift Merritt overcame those conflicts to record and release a spectacular album – with a big assist from producer George Drakoulias, who championed her songs against the label’s early skepticism. And now – with the help of her friend Holly Lowman, who runs the One Riot record label – she’s getting a second chance to revisit and celebrate those songs all over again.
And not just the songs on “Tambourine”: with her new album, “Time and Patience,” Merritt is getting a first chance to release some of the songs that got cut from the original album, plus never-before-heard “kitchen” demo recordings of Tambourine’s most popular tracks.
“When we started talking about it, (Holly) said, ‘do you have any outtakes or stuff from that era that might be good?’ And I went, ‘I have no idea,’” Merritt says. “And I went up in the attic and I started listening to stuff – and it was very disorienting to meet that version of myself again, and to be like, ‘oh, no, she’s cool.’”
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Now, Merritt is back on the road performing again, after taking several years off to raise her daughter. She’s also working to renovate the Gables Motel in Raleigh, with hopes to reopen it next summer.
And if all that wasn’t enough, she says she’s planning to head back into the studio to record new music later this year – proving that for Tift Merritt, the future is as bright as the past.
“This has all been a sweet reminder of how music is a great way to put love into the world,” she says.
Tift Merritt stopped by Live and Local to discuss “Time and Patience” and the re-release of “Tambourine.” She also played three songs in the studio: “Stray Paper,” “Write My Ticket,” and “Time and Patience.” Listen:
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