Tift Merritt is a singer from North Carolina blessed with an amazing voice and great taste. Her initial interest in music was inspired by a folk music playing father who taught her to play guitar and from listening to records by Emmylou Harris and Joni Mitchell, in particular.
After coming up with a few bands in North Carolina, Tift's music caught the attention of Ryan Adams, who was instrumental in getting her first record, Bramble Rose, made in 2002.
Bramble Rose is one of those great debut albums where every track is as good as the first. Here is the first song off the record, "Trouble Over Me."
Tift Merritt - Trouble Over Me
On Tift's second album, 2004's Tambourine, the sound was looser and the songs were more soulful. My favorite song off of that record is a great ballad that first got me hooked on her music, "The Plainest Thing."
Tift Merritt - "The Plainest Thing"
Tift on Austin City Limits playing the opening track from Tambourine, "Stray Paper."
Tift would not release another record until 2008. After a long stretch of touring, she decided to move to Paris, France for six months. The result was an album clearly inspired by Joni Mitchell's Blue called Another Country. The record is an amazing document of someone who had been through a lot and had come out of it with a genuine sense of peace and optimism about what lies ahead.
Here's the music video for the lead single off of Another Country and one of the catchiest songs in forever, "Broken."
Today, Tift released a live cd Buckingham Solo exclusively to independent stores for Record Store Day. There is a link to order it below, but here is more of Tift solo with a set of four songs from Another Country on the radio show Acoustic Cafe.
Tift Merritt - Live on Acoustic Cafe
01 - Broken
02 - Another Country
03 - I Know What I'm Looking For Now
04 - Mille Tendresses (A Thousand Tendernesses)
Thanks for checking this out everyone.
Buy Tift Merritt's Another Country from amazon.com
Buy the new live cd Buckingham Solo at newburycomics.com
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