The Carbines began to take on a new shape around this time as well. Violinist White eventually got too busy to stay on (she currently plays with the Comas, Sparklehorse and Regina Hexaphone), and bassist Thurston was replaced in early 2000 by Jay Brown, shortly before the band made its first trip to Austin for the South By Southwest festival.
Brown and keyboardist/pedal steel player Readling had played together previously in a band called Stillhouse, which Brown says was “kind of an electric bluegrass thing” fronted by songwriter/guitarist Dave Wilson. In fact, it was at a Stillhouse gig in mid-1998 that Hutchins had initially seen Readling play pedal steel. He and Merritt had reeled in Readling with an offer of a side-stage gig at the mega-venue in Charlotte opening for LeAnn Rimes. Readling, in turn, helped bring Brown aboard in time for the SXSW show.
Which brings us more or less up-to-date with the last time we visited Merritt and the Carbines in these pages. They were chosen as among our five “emerging insurgents” in a Jan.-Feb. 2000 cover package focusing on fast-rising talent within the alt-country realm. At that time, we reported that Merritt was on the verge of signing with prominent Durham independent label Sugar Hill Records.
Quite a bit transpired over the next couple of months. The SXSW show, on an outdoor patio at a bar called Opal Divine’s, proved a modest but worthwhile endeavor, and a solid bonding experience for the new lineup. In April, Merritt performed “Blue Motel”, a longtime staple in the band’s live sets, at the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest, and won first place.
Among the judges of the contest was songwriter Jim Lauderdale, who was impressed enough by Merritt’s talents that he mentioned her name to Frank Callari, a Nashville manager whose clients included Lucinda Williams, Kim Richey and Ryan Adams. Coincidentally, Merritt had recently become acquainted with Adams, who still had strong ties to Carolina despite having moved to New York. Adams told Callari about Merritt too, and so did record executive Kevin Welk (who, like Lauderdale, had seen Merritt perform at Merlefest).
“So all these people mentioned me in one day, and Frank was like, ‘This is it, this is the day I call her,'” she recalls. “And he was like, ‘Everybody tells me I should be managing you.’ And I knew who Frank Callari was, because I looked at the back of a lot of my favorite records, and I was like, that guy knows what’s going on. So when he called and said, “People say I should be managing you,’ I said, ‘You should, and I’ve been waiting for you to call me!'”
Callari suggested that Merritt consider options besides Sugar Hill. That led to a demo deal with Mercury, resulting in a fifteen-track session with renowned North Carolina producer Chris Stamey, who has helmed two of the finest Americana albums of the new decade for Alejandro Escovedo and Caitlin Cary.
Mercury opted not to release the Stamey sessions, but those recordings paved the way for Merritt to be added to the roster of a fledgling label being launched by Callari and Mercury honcho Luke Lewis. Dubbed Lost Highway, its first release (though it came out before the new imprint was officially off the ground) was the landmark O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Callari also brought Williams, Richey and Adams to Lost Highway from his managment roster.
Merritt and her band traveled to SXSW again in March 2001. This time, instead of playing a small patio bar, they opened a Lost Highway showcase at the 2,500-capacity Austin Music Hall, the festival’s biggest venue. Clearly it was now a whole new ball game — even though Merritt had quit her part-time waitressing job just a few weeks earlier.
Despite the rise to the big leagues, Merritt remained resolved to make her debut album on her own terms. A major priority on that front was recording with her own band — sometimes a point of conflict for artists who sign a deal with a label under their own individual name.
Merritt is quick to point out, however, that this was never an issue with Lost Highway. “I’ve had more support and encouragement from Lost Highway, and from the Mercury demo deal — all of that was as hands-off as anything has been,” she says. “I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve never come across the situation of, ‘Here’s where you graduate to a different set of rules.'”
Merritt’s band is significant not only in that they’re talented enough to do the job, but also because this is a remarkably close unit. Merritt and Hutchins are partners in life as well as in music, while Readling and Brown have been close friends for more than ten years. Hutchins’ past experiences with Queen Sarah Saturday are an invaluable asset as the stakes get higher and the business becomes more involved. Readling, meanwhile, is gradually developing into an uncommonly proficient multi-instrumentalist, with a growing list of credits on other artists’ albums.
The band members have also been unfailingly understanding about their role in this process, even as they are aware that it’s Merritt who is signed to Lost Highway, not the Carbines. “I have 100 percent faith in Tift,” bassist Brown says. “Not only faith in her loyalty to me, but also faith in her ability, and just knowing that she’s gonna come up with even better songs, as time goes on.”
Indeed, that’s precisely what Merritt did while waiting out the down time between recording the Mercury demo and the Lost Highway album. With fifteen songs recorded for the demo, one might have expected they’d pick the best ten or so tunes from that batch for the album. Instead, Merritt spent the winter and spring writing a bounty of new tunes, unveiling several of them in a handful of solo performances at Merlefest 2001 in April. Six songs from this stretch ended up on Bramble Rose, supplemented by five from the Mercury demos (though all those were recorded anew for the album).
