Tift Merritt
| Tift Merritt | |
|---|---|
Merritt performing at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival in Silk Hope, North Carolina, in 2007. Photo by Forrest L. Smith, III.
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Catherine Tift Merritt |
| Born |
January 8, 1975 Houston, Texas |
| Origin | Raleigh, North Carolina, United States |
| Genres |
Folk Americana Alternative country |
| Occupation(s) | Musician songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals guitar Keyboards Piano Harmonica |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Labels | Lost Highway, Fantasy, Yep Roc |
| Associated acts | The Two Dollar Pistols with Tift Merritt |
| Website | www.tiftmerritt.com |
Catherine Tift Merritt (born January 8, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter, and musician. With her longtime band, she has built what has been called a "unique" and critically acclaimed body of work of "sonic short stories and poignant performances." She has been compared to artists like Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris.
Merritt has released seven studio albums to date: two for Lost Highway Records, two for Fantasy Records, and three for Yep Roc Records. Her live albums so far are Home Is Loud released in 2005 and Buckingham Solo released in 2009.
Merritt was born in Houston but her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina soon after. Her father taught her guitar chords and how to play piano by ear to Percy Sledge and Bob Dylan songs, and she sang harmonies with him as a child. His eclectic record collection of soul, folk, R&B, rock, and country music records influenced her both then and later; she credits his "genre-less" taste with influencing her to write and perform without regard to genre herself.
In her early twenties, though she had performed solo in public, Merritt has said she decided she was better suited to writing short stories. She enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study creative writing. There, she met Zeke Hutchins, whose band had just taken a hiatus and who had decided instead to become a school teacher. "With his encouragement and a big box of LPs from the 1970s," Merritt and Hutchins agreed to form a band. Hutchins set up his drum kit in the kitchen of the farmhouse where Merritt lived, and they practiced songs at her piano.
Merritt began her professional career with her band The Carbines playing small clubs in Chapel Hill and Raleigh such as The Cave, Cat's Cradle, and the front porch of the General Store in Bynum, NC. In 1998, The Carbines released a 7-inch single "Jukejoint Girl" b/w "Cowboy". In 1999, Merritt made a guest appearance with the Two Dollar Pistols, led by John Howie, Jr., on a seven-song EP The Two Dollar Pistols with Tift Merritt, on the Yep Roc label. The EP featured two original tunes and five cover songs.
...
Wikipedia