SOUNDTRACK: NATALIE MERCHANT-Tiny Desk Concert #500 (January 12, 2016).
Natalie Merchant was supposed to appear on a Tiny Desk show in 2014, but she was ill on that day (she even tells the story of going to the hospital). She had to cancel the entire tour. Turns out we saw her on that tour a couple of days before she got sick!
When Sarah and I saw her we both remarked on how great her voice still sounded. And it sounds great here too. The same instantly recognizable voice from her albums with all of the power and inflection that she’s always had.
Although I still don’t understand where her speaking voice accent comes from (she’s from upstate New York after all).
“Motherland” (a 2001 song) she dedicates to the staff of NPR. Her accompaniment is an acoustic guitar, upright bass and accordion and it works very well for this slow, rather sad song.
“Texas” is another pretty, slow song from her 2014 album which she was supposed to pay at the Tiny Desk show. She says he most regretted missing the Tiny Desk show when she had to cancel her tour. She had no idea the desk was not so tiny and that it could fit 1000 people standing around watching.
Then she plugs her new album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. It is a reworking of her songs from Tigerlily (and there was a documentary that accompanied it (which they were filming when we saw her). She plays “Cowboy Romance” from that album. I don’t know the original (or I don’t recognize the song) but it sounds fine in this stripped down format.
Even though her songs are rather serious, she’s quite silly with the band and crew. She emphasis “CONfiguRAtion of muSICians” before introducing “Cowboy Romance.”
Everyone assumes she will play only three songs (the standard), but she has a special treat planned. She says that she heard a story on NPR about how office workplaces would benefit from singing together. And they are all trapped with her. So she says they are going to sing a Protestant hymn that she recently found in a songbook in the library.
She says that she and the guitarist are Catholic, the accordionist is Jewish (from Israel) and the bassist has no religion. he says he’s from the West Coast (she jokes that he’s from a cult in Oregon). Then when she asks the guitarist what key it’s in and he says, “What song? ” to which everyone laughs because she never mentioned the title.
It’s a lovely old song which she teaches to the whole room. After the first verse, she says she approves of the group sing-along and says it should be a weekly thing. I love the way they split the screen to show the whole staff singing along. It’s quite lovely and the staff’s accompaniment is really pretty.
This is a delightful show and a very intimate performance by Natalie Merchant.
[READ: January 12, 2016] “Learning to Fly Part 2”
I really enjoyed Part 1 of this essay, but as often happens to me with broken up pieces, I forgot about the next part until long after. So here it is over six months since I read Part 1 finally getting around to Part 2 (but at least I have Parts 3 and 4 with me so I’ll be finishing them up soon). (more…)
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I Just Read About That... 