A verse of the Tambourine track “Plainest Thing” offers what could be interpreted as a fly-on-the-wall view of Merritt’s struggles with her muse: “I don’t know how it works/I don’t know how to say/I was thinking about us/It’s just the plainest thing.”
To cut down on distractions, Merritt moved to a “tiny, simple, shotgun shack” on the North Carolina coast. (This also allowed more opportunities to explore her new hobby, surfing.) “I live very purposefully and separately from the music industry,” she says. Not so cut off, however, that she didn’t know who she wanted to produce Tambourine: George Drakoulias, whose credits include the Jayhawks, the Black Crowes, Tom Petty…and Maria McKee, one of Merritt’s all-time favorites.
“I’ve wanted to work with George since I was 19 and I heard Maria McKee’s You Gotta Sin To Be Saved,” she reveals. “I just knew when I heard that record, ‘That’s the guy, that’s who I want to work with.'”
Drakoulias assembled an A-list of players for Tambourine. (Of Merritt’s regular band, only Hutchins appears on the album, contributing occasional percussion.) Among others, he roped in Gary Louris from the Jayhawks, Tench and Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers, drummer Steve Gorman of the Black Crowes, pedal steel rising-star Robert Randolph — and, to Merritt’s delight, McKee herself.
“One day, George said, ‘We should get Maria down to sing on some stuff,'” Merritt recalls. “He just called her up, and she came down to the studio, and was wonderful and charming and as open-hearted as she could be.
“I certainly feel like I’m a point in my life where, as corny as it sounds, a lot of my dreams have come true,” she continues. Working with McKee stacks up alongside the night in November 2002 when she appeared at a Landmine Free World concert with Emmylou Harris and others, and was startled to hear Harris harmonizing along on the Bramble Rose song “When I Cross Over”. “That was one of those moments where you just keep your finger in the book, on that page, and whenever you need inspiration and joy and faith, you turn back to it and go, ‘Look, this happened. I dreamed that it would, and it did.'”
Although McKee knew little about the rising star — save for having read in The New Yorker that Merritt was a fan of hers — she says the two clicked instantly. “I immediately hooked into her, and her world,” says the former Lone Justice singer. “She’s one of those people who unconsciously collects this atmosphere around her that is very warm and generous, and you want to be a part of it. That’s rare.
“I think it was a little bit of a comfort for Tift to have me around,” McKee adds. “It’s tough, George’s thing, because it’s a real boys club. He works with a lot of the same musicians — who are also friends of mine. But I love George. As a producer, he likes to commit to a vibe. He loves classic rock, classic soul, and he makes records that sound real genuine in that way.”
“Making a record is always this process of coming very, very close to something very intricate that you’re working on,” Merritt says. “I haven’t made that many, and it seems like every time I make one, I grow and learn a lot.”
Now Merritt is eager to share Tambourine with the rest of the world. “I’m excited about is getting back on the road, and being onstage every night, and having it be fresh and intense,” she says.
She’ll be doing it with a modified cast of characters, though. Despite every initial intention of touring in support of Tambourine, Readling and Wilson bowed out of her band after the album was finished. (They’ve been replaced by guitarist Brad Rice, whose credits inclued the Backsliders and Ryan Adams, and keyboardist Dan Eisenberg, who played with Rice in one of Adams’ recent lineups.)
Wilson decided to concentrate his efforts on Chatham County Line, whose 2003 self-titled debut began to establish the band beyond its home region. Readling is, for the time being, playing standup bass with Chatham County Line; he says he isn’t sure what he wants to do — only that it isn’t living in a tour van for a year, or trying to maintain pace with Merritt’s rapid ascent.
“I remember telling Tift if I was 25 instead of 35, I can’t imagine that I’d be quitting,” says Readling, quick to stress that their parting was amicable. “We are definitely good friends, and anticipate remaining friends. We have a mutual understanding of each other’s new paths.”
Readling says Merritt “always seemed to know what she wanted, and how she wanted to go about achieving what she wanted, musically and business-wise. It takes a person with a type of drive, and attention to detail, to get to a certain level. I don’t think it can happen unless you have those personality traits. Tift has them. Those have been good things for her.”
Like the southern authors she loves (Eudora Welty is her favorite), Merritt has a knack for crafting memorable characters. But she lets glimpses of herself shine through in her songs, too. Perhaps most revealing of her current state of mind is the chorus of “Wait It Out”:
Wait it out, wait it out,
So tired of hearing that I got to slow down.
I ain’t gonna listen to ’em tell me how,
I just started burning and I won’t stop now.
“One thing I would wish for Tift is that she’ll always be able to do what she wants,” concludes McKee. “That she will have creative control, and be able to follow her heart musically. Because otherwise, why do it? She has a genuine voice, and she conveys a lot of truth, and I would hope that she would never deny that in her music and her songwriting.”
ND contributing editor Kurt B. Reighley is a Seattle-based writer, DJ, and singer for the band Purty Mouth. It took him 20-plus years to realize that Tapestry truly is a masterpiece.
