Artist of the month: Natalie Merchant

Natalie Anne Merchant (born October 26, 1963 in Jamestown, New York, USA) is a professional musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993. Merchant has a contralto vocal range.

Merchant's first solo album, Tigerlily
Merchant has said in interviews that after her split with 10,000 Maniacs she was so eager to begin writing her own material that she went home that very day and composed the song “I May Know The Word,” which was originally meant to appear on the soundtrack to the... (read more)
Tom Hanks movie, Philadelphia. The song was eventually cut from the soundtrack, but it would go on to appear on Merchant’s debut solo album, Tigerlily, which was released on the Elektra label in 1995. Merchant chose to name the album Tigerlily as she felt it captured the feel of the album, which she described as both “fierce” and “delicate.”

Seeking creative control, Merchant chose to fund Tigerlily herself, refusing the advance from the record company. She also wanted to work with a core-group of young musicians who she felt would be enthusiastic about the music. The group would consist of guitarist Jennifer Turner, bassist Barrie McGuire, and former-Wallflower and eventual boyfriend to Merchant, Peter Yanowitz, who played drums on the album and who continued to do so with Merchant until their abrupt split in 2000.

Tigerlily was a critical and commercial success, spawning her first top-ten hit in the single "Carnival", and achieving top-forty success with subsequent singles "Wonder" and "Jealousy". The album would go on to sell over 5 million copies, and continues to be Merchant’s most successful album to date. Merchant did extensive touring for the album and made numerous television appearances, including performances on SNL, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and all late-night talk shows. The media's immediate and critical impact on culture and cultural icons was of particular interest to Merchant. In "River", a song from Tigerlily, Merchant defends River Phoenix as she castigates the media for systematically dissecting the child actor after his death. Much of their emphasis was on Phoenix' suspected drug-using lifestyle. In "River," Merchant asks, “Why don’t you let him be / Give his mother and father peace.” Merchant’s anger is later replaced with quiet reflection, asking, “It was such a nightmare raving, ‘How could we save him from himself?’

Ophelia 1998-1999
Three years passed before Merchant would release her sophomore solo effort, Ophelia. While Tigerlily contained a lot of sparse instrumentation, the music on Ophelia featured plenty of lush symphonic arrangements composed and conducted by British composer Gavin Bryers. Merchant treated the recording of Ophelia as a series of workshops, where she would invite various musicians she had met over the years into her home studio to collaborate and record. In the end, 30 different musicians featured on the album, among them Brand New Heavies frontwoman N'Dea Davenport (with whom she duets on the song Break Your Heart), famed trumpet player Chris Botti, and the husband and wife duo, Don and Karen Perris, from the band The Innocence Mission.

While Ophelia is not a concept record in the traditional sense, the album-cycle saw Merchant flexing her creative muscles in surprising ways. The name of the album and the title track are a literary reference to Shakespeare's Ophelia, who in the play Hamlet becomes mad and eventually commits suicide. Merchant's Ophelia describes a woman who is also mad and suffering from what appears to be Multiple-Personality Disorder. Ophelia is described as being at once a "novice carmelite," a "suffragette," a "circus queen," a "demigoddess" and a "mafia courtesan." The album sleeve saw Merchant pictured in colorful and ornate costumes as each of these different characters. As a companion to the album, she also released a film where she portrays each of these different characters, with voice-overs used for the "novice carmelite," the "sweetheart" and the "courtesan" as they are Latin, German and Italian, respectively.

The first single of the album was a happy and uncharacteristically simple song called "Kind and Generous", which received massive airplay on VH1 and which solidified Merchant's role as a bona fide solo artist. That summer, Sarah Maclachlan invited Merchant to co-headline the year's biggest music festival with her, Lilith Fair. The exposure from the tour helped the album reach Platinum status in just under a year, with subsequent singles "Break Your Heart" and "Life is Sweet" receiving moderate airplay on adult contemporary stations. No video was filmed for the latter, however, with a clip from Merchant's appearance on VH1's Storytellers being used instead. She would also go on to appear on PBS' Sessions at West 54th and VH1's Hard Rock Live before the year's end.

The Ophelia tour ended in 1999 with the final few shows being performed and recorded on Broadway. The performance would be released as the album Natalie Merchant: Live in Concert with a companion video of the same name. The performance was notable in that it featured numerous covers including songs by David Bowie, Neil Young, and Irish singer-songwriter Katell Keineg.

American Folk Music Tour 2000
In 2000, Merchant embarked on a folk tour in the states with many shows being supported by alt-country band Wilco.

Motherland 2001
Merchant's next studio album on the Elektra label was Motherland, released in 2001. Motherland saw Merchant at her most experimental musically. Motherland achieved Gold on the Billboard charts after debuting at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 and No. 13 on the Top Internet Albums of 2001, respectively. Rolling Stone favored this album with 3 1/2 stars, and also noticed a difference in Merchant's voice, which was more deep and gritty than her previous albums. Singles that were released from Motherland were Just Can't Last, Build a Levee and Tell Yourself.

Merchant vamped on a year and a half world tour to promote Motherland. The first leg of the tour started in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 17, 2001, trekking all over the United States, and then heading to Europe with some special acoustic shows in Europe. Merchant also participated in the Rock am Ring Festival and Rock im Park in 2002. In the summer of 2002, she was paired with Chris Isaak and both played at stadiums and arenas.

'The House Carpenter's Daughter' 2003
Merchant's next studio album on her own label, Myth America Records, was named "The House Carpenter's Daughter." It was released in September 2003.

Discography:

With 10,000 Maniacs
Human Conflict Number Five (1982)
Secrets of the I Ching (1983)
The Wishing Chair (1985)
In My Tribe (1987)
Blind Man's Zoo (1989)
Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings 1982-1983 (1990)
Our Time in Eden (1992)
MTV Unplugged (1993)
Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings (2004)

Solo Studio Albums
Tigerlily (1995)
Ophelia (1998)
Motherland (2001)
The House Carpenter's Daughter (2003)
Untitled Project (2010)

Compilation Albums
Natalie Merchant: In Conversation (1996)
Live in Concert (1999)
Retrospective: 1995-2005 (2005)
src: wikipedia