Vector Arena is proud to announce that 2004 Grammy nominee Tift Merritt will return to New Zealand this September.
Tift Merritt, the “diamond in a coal patch” as described once by Emmylou Harris – will be in Australia supporting five-time Grammy award winner Mary Chapin Carpenter on her Australian tour and will make a special trip to NZ for one show only at The Tuning Fork; a welcome return after her stunning Auckland debut show in April 2014.
More recently Tift’s song “Bramble Rose” has been recorded by Don Henley, Mick Jagger and Miranda Lambert, on Don Henley’s forthcoming album Cass County, “a song that Henley…has been a fan of since he had heard Tift Merritt’s version in the early 2000s.” - Billboard Magazine
The New Yorker has called Merritt “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry,” a standard upholding that got underway in earnest with Bramble Rose, the 2002 solo debut that put her on the Americana map forever.
As her second album, Tambourine, was followed by Another Country and See You on the Moon, Merritt found acclaim coming not just from critics and awards organisations, but her own heroes, such as Emmylou Harris. Now a leading lady in her own right, Merritt is hardly one to hog the spotlight. She engages in dialogue with fellow artists of all disciplines on her public radio broadcast and podcast “The Spark With Tift Merritt,” bringing in fellow sojourners ranging from Patty Griffin and Rosanne Cash to Rick Moody and Nick Hornby (who devoted a chapter to Merritt in his 31 Songs book).
On Merritt’s latest release, Traveling Alone, she knew—and got—exactly the journeymen she wanted with her on this 11-track trip: legendary guitarist Marc Ribot, Calexico drummer John Convertino, steel player extraordinaire Eric Heywood, acclaimed jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist Rob Burger, and longtime cohort Jay Brown on bass. As captured by producer Tucker Martine (known for working with the Decemberists, and one of Paste magazine’s “10 Best Producers of the Decade”) and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Ryan Freeland, the sound is both spare and luxurious.
“… Traveling Alone…not only shows her true lyrical and vocal range, but suggests an adventurous spirit beneath the placid surface…” – Paste
“The touch of sweet sadness in Tift Merritt’s voice has rarely served her better than it does on Traveling Alone.” – New York Times
“Merritt’s achingly beautiful country-tinged tunes hark back to the musical work of Joni Mitchell, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Leonard Cohen.”– Time Magazine
