#9 – See You On the Moon – Tift Merritt
I ranked Tift Merritt’s fourth album, See You On the Moon, at #3 on my 2009 year-end list, and now it’s one of two albums from that year to make this list.
The album it leap-frogged is Elvis Costello’s National Ransom, a fine record indeed but not one I find myself returning to often.
Every time I think about a concert experience, I can’t help but flash back to the Tift Merritt show I attended with my wife this past April.
Merritt played to a room of no more than 40 people — I feel like I’ve been to dinner parties that seated more — and we were in the front row, literally able to reach out and touch her as she played if we were so inclined.
I’m interrupting today’s Random Weekend choice in order to post an update on the Tift Merritt concert situation I wrote about a couple of weeks back.
My wife and I arrived at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and were directed down a byzantine path toward the Abdo New River Room, a lounge about the size of one of those small side bars on a cruise ship. Fifty or 60 folding chairs were arranged in the middle of the room directly in front of a stage that barely rose above the floor.
The other day I was very excited when my Facebook feed served up not just the usual mix of ads and self-help soliloquies but an announcement that immediately moved me to action.
Tift Merritt, the singer-songwriter beloved by me and a handful of NPR listeners who recognize her as a sublime cross between Joni Mitchell and Lucinda Williams, is coming to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
Top Songs of 2012 – #10
Tift Merritt’s fifth studio album, Traveling Alone, is a lower key affair than her previous releases. It is made up primarily of acoustic ballads with melodies that take a little while to seep in.
But in a few spots, Merritt and her band open up and settle into a blues-rock groove. Those songs quickly became favorites of mine, probably because they are more immediately accessible.
Meet Me In Montauk 