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.

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