Guess who she’s standing with in this picture…
Another reason to like Tift Merritt
Song of the Day #108: ‘Something to Me’ – Tift Merritt
Ah, Tift Merritt.
Here is one of those serendipitous finds you just have to chalk up to fate. I don’t know how or why I happened upon Merritt’s second album, Tambourine, a few years ago but it hit me like a freight train. Where had this woman been all my life?
Just a week or two later I got tickets to an Elvis Costello concert and who should be his opening act but… Tift Merritt. I was as excited to see her perform that night as the main act and she did not disappoint. She commanded the auditorium during her short set, jumping from keyboards to acoustic and electric guitar to the harmonica and showing off that wonderful voice — alternately gravelly soulful and crystalline pure.
Song of the Day #107: ‘Umbrella’ – Rihanna
I have read and heard more about today’s song, Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella,’ than I have about any other modern song I can think of. When it was released a year or so ago, it was constantly mentioned in the magazines and Web sites I read. It’s been remixed a dozen times and covered by a host of professional and amateur artists. It is the most copiously analyzed and appreciated song of the past several years.
And I had never heard it all the way through until today.
Song of the Day #105: ‘What You’re Doing’ – The Beatles
Beatles For Sale feels like it should be the group’s third album — so much so that I have accidentally miscategorized it as such several times already in preparing this week’s blog posts. After the all-original material of A Hard Day’s Night, it returns to the pattern of the band’s first two releases, splitting the lineup between originals and covers.
I imagine it was a bit of a let-down when it came out. Following the phenomenal artistic success of A Hard Day’s Night it must have seemed like a step backward. For me, who discovered all of The Beatles’ albums nearly two decades after the group broke up, that wasn’t really an issue.
