I believe one reason fame has eluded Tift Merritt is that she’s too damn intellectual. I certainly don’t mean that as a criticism, but I can see how it limits her appeal.
Merritt is the ultimate NPR artist. She’s done a slew of Tiny Desk Concert-esque performances for a dozen audience members and a radio listenership probably not much larger. Her albums are lauded by crunchy granola whisperers like the ones Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon used to parody on SNL.
‘Heartache is an Uphill Climb’ is the second track and first single on Tift Merritt’s Stitch of the World.
I’ve heard Merritt compared to a host of artists. Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow. One recent reviewer wrote that she lives at the midpoint between Emmylou Harris and Joni Mitchell, a description I like. Many write-ups of today’s SOTD compare her vocals to Dolly Parton.
Last year around this time I posted a song-by-song consideration of Lucinda Williams’ latest album, The Ghosts of Highway 20. It wasn’t exactly applauded by my regular readers, though I did get at least one staunch Williams fan defending me.
That defense came in a comment on a song by another favorite artist of mine, Tift Merritt, and earlier in the thread the same person broke the news that Merritt would release a new album in early 2017.
I apologize for this. Random weekends are random, what can you do?
While we wait patiently for Beck’s 13th studio album, his first since 2014’s Grammy-winning Morning Phase, let’s enjoy a blast from the past in the form of ‘Peaches & Cream,’ a cut from his 1999 album Midnite Vultures.
Midnite Vultures, released in the midst of Y2K paranoia, before we lost our national innocence on 9/11, is a blissed-out vision of white boy funk on which Beck very effectively channels Prince.
Meet Me In Montauk 