Tag: Natalie Merchant

Natalie Merchant Releases New Album “Keep Your Courage” and Opens Tour (Concert & Album Review)

Our review of Natalie Merchant’s “Keep Your Courage” album and tour, finds one of music’s finest writers and singers of the last four decades in top form, inspiring us out of darker days.

Natalie Merchant released her first new album of new material in nine years with Keep Your Courage. Along with that album’s release on April 14, 2023, Merchant launched a new tour at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY, near her Hudson Valley home. And I was fortunate to see her show there on April 15.

Below we examine the new album and what inspired Natalie Merchant’s new music. And then we discuss the opening weekend of the tour supporting the album from one of our most enduring singer-songwriters of the last forty years.

Keep Your Courage

Keep Your Courage Merchant

First, the album. Keep Your Courage emerges from a rough time for Natalie Merchant. In addition to trying to get through the pandemic, she underwent spinal surgery four days after the start of the lockdown. The surgery required a long healing process.

The album’s title, Keep Your Courage, as well as the image of Joan of Arc on the cover, gives away that it is not a dark album. Instead, as AllMusic writes, the music “celebrates compassion, empathy, and inspiration.”

The album includes some of the most catchy songs from Merchant’s post-10,000 Maniacs career, including the album’s opening two duets with Abena Koomson-Davis of the Resistance Revival Choir. “Come On Aphrodite” immediately became one of my favorite songs from Merchant’s career.

The title of “Come on Aphrodite” hints at some of the themes on the album, where Merchant’s songwriting incorporates myths, legends, and history to send a positive message. As Merchant has explained, “During the pandemic, it really felt like we were living in the myth.”

Many of the songs on the album are slower and many feature rich orchestrations, more rooted in classical and folk music than in pop or rock. Or as Jim Shahen at No Depression describes the arrangements as “baroque pop.”

Merchant wrote nine songs for the album, which also includes an interpretation of “Hunting the Wren” by Ian Lynch of the Irish band Lankum. Merchant’s “Sister Tilly” provides a tribute to the inspiring women of her mother’s generation.

Yet, both the slower and more upbeat songs are uplifting. Largely because Merchant’s writing and her voice, as always, bring a deep warmth and compassion to the music.

Perhaps the best description of the two types of music on Keep Your Courage comes from a statement Merchant made about creating the album: “Music got me through the pandemic, and what I wanted to hear was thoughtful, beautiful music, or I wanted to dance.”

The Keep Your Courage Tour

The above description about the combination of “thoughtful, beautiful music” with dancing music, not surprisingly, also describes Merchant’s 2023 tour. Alternating between the slower lush music of her career and music that makes you want to dance, Merchant performed a moving and, at times, lively show. Throughout, despite needing some honey for her throat at one point, Merchant’s voice remains distinctive and strong as it ever was.

Her performance at Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY on Saturday, April 15, 2023, featured a guitar, a piano, a cello, several stringed instruments, and a powerful backup singer. Although some of her shows on this tour feature a fuller local orchestra, her smaller travelling group filled the house with a sound that well-suited Merchant’s voice.

Not surprisingly, the setlist featured several songs from the new album, including “Sister Tilly,” “Come On Aphrodite,” “Narcissus,” “The Feast of St. Valentine,” “Big Girls,” and “Tower of Babel.” But the 25 songs (with an intermission) also included highlights across her long career, like “Beloved Wife” and “Ophelia.” And, much to the delight of the audience, Merchant herself danced to uplifting songs from both her solo career and her time with 10,000 Maniacs, like “Kind and Generous,” “Wonder,” and the final encore closing “These Are Days.”

All in all, in both her new album and her ongoing tour, Merchant brings us both somber reflection and uplifting celebration of getting through dark days. And it means more because she dances with knowledge that the dark days always come again.

But that is why when you can, you have to take time to reflect while also remembering to dance.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    A Summer Evening With Natalie Merchant (Concert Review)

    Natalie Merchant recently completed a short A Summer Evening With Natalie Merchant tour. During it, she visited several Northeast states, including Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. I was lucky to catch her at Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York for the final performance of the tour on August 9, 2019. On a simple blue-lit stage accompanied only by one musician, she gave an intimate career-spanning show.

    Merchant appeared on the stage before maybe a few hundred people, alone except for a piano behind her and her guitarist Erik Della Penna at her side. Throughout most of the show, Penna provided the only accompaniment. But Merchant did not hesitate to stand up and move with the music. She often spoke to the audience, telling stories.

    Penna’s guitar work beautifully accompanied the songs, perfectly balancing and never intruding, allowing Merchant’s voice to shine. And it was her amazing voice that mesmerized the listeners. Her distinctive voice sounded much like it did while Merchant was still in her twenties.

    The Summer Evening Tour helped promote a recent 10-CD box set that Merchant released covering her solo career since she left 10,000 Maniacs. The Natalie Merchant Collection begins with Merchant’s successful Tigerlily album and includes a new album, Butterfly, as well as a CD of rarities.

    Merchant’s career is ripe for the retrospective. If you have not followed her career in recent years, you have missed out on a career that has continued to create quality interesting music. Delving into folk music interpretations, different arrangements like using a string quartet, Merchant maintains her signature sound while also being adventurous.

    The Summer Evening Tour did an outstanding job of highlighting the roads of Merchant’s career. She closed with the Maniacs classic “These Are Days.” She had played the song on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show the night before. She played it, she joked, “Because whatever Jimmy wants, he gets.” (Update: Unfortunately, the video of her Tonight Show performance is no longer available on YouTube.)

    And of course, there was “Wonder” from Tigerlily. But songs from her other albums stood up with her most well-known songs. Among other songs she played were: “Motherland,” “Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience,” “Owensboro,” “Cowboy Romance,” “Break Your Heart,” a cover of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” (for her guitarists parents’ anniversary), and “Don’t Talk.”

    For the encore she came back onstage, starting with just herself at the piano before being joined again by her guitarist. Other songs included: “Life is Sweet, the folk song “Matty Groves,” “Saint Judas,” “If Noone Ever Marries Me,” “Wonder,” and “Kind and Generous.”

    During the long folk song “Matty Groves,” Merchant forgot the lyrics at a few points. As she sought help from her guitarist, she did it all in a funny way that made the audience enjoy it even more.

    Because of Merchant’s advocacy for social justice issues in her life and music, it was not surprising that her banter went to such issues a few times. She talked a little about President Trump and his immigration policies when she introduced “Saint Judas.” And earlier she told a story about the city of Hudson’s history in fighting against a large polluting concrete company that wanted to destroy the area before people fought back. Such talk was limited and done in an entertaining way that brought the audience together.

    Although Merchant appears to be taking a break from performing and recording, during the show she announced she will be getting the John Lennon Real Love Award in December. The award will be presented by Yoko Ono for Merchant’s activism and music. As part of receiving the award, Merchant will perform with other artists in tribute to Lennon and the Beatles.

    Although Merchant may not attract the large crowds she did in her heyday, she still sells out small venues. And the intimate settings highlight her music, her charisma, and her voice. If you get the chance to see her, do. In the meantime, if you have lost track of her recent work, check out the career-spanning box set.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Sounding Joy: A Refreshing Timeless Christmas Album

    Elizabeth Mitchell

    The Sounding Joy: Christmas Songs In and Out of the Ruth Crawford Seeger Songbook provides a wonderful alternative to the glossy over-used Christmas songs we hear every year. On the 2013 album, Elizabeth Mitchell, with a little help from her friends, provides a refreshing break from the commercialization of the holiday with songs taken from a songbook created by Ruth Crawford Seeger.

    The songbook was published in 1953 and used in schoolhouses around the country before it was taken out of circulation. As part of the WPA Federal Music Project during the Great Depression, Seeger worked to help preserve old folk songs. She often worked with her family members as well as John Avery Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Bess Lomax Hawes. Ruth Seeger also worked as a composer in her own right.  And she used her skills in arranging the songs in her songbooks.

    The Songbook

    Seeger arranged her songbooks for families to sing the folk songs in their living rooms. As she wrote, “These songs grew out of and were used in the old-time American Christmas, a Christmas not of Santa Claus and tinseled trees but of homespun worship and festivity.” Her 1953 songbook, American Folk Songs for Christmas, followed two songbooks she created of folk songs for children.

    Ruth Seeger died of cancer the year her Christmas songbook was published. But her children Mike, Peggy, Penny, and stepson Pete Seeger helped continue the American folk revival she helped start. Peggy Seeger is one of the friends who joins Elizabeth Mitchell on two of the carols on the CD.

    There are a few songs you will recognize, like a version of “Joy to the World” with lovely banjo and vocal harmonies.  But most of the songs will be new to the casual listener. Some are more religious than many songs usually played today. Yet others capture other aspects of the holiday season like the Winter solstice.

    As Mitchell writes in her liner notes for the album, “Through her song choices, Ruth Crawford Singer shined a light on a distinctly American Christmas tradion that might be unrecognizable to us today.”

    The Album

    Mitchell adds her own touch to the songs.  But she also keeps the simplicity of the folk songs that reflect certain regions and times in America. The album also features other friends largely from around her community in Woodstock, New York.  Other performers include Natalie Merchant, Aoife O’Donovan, Amy Helm, John Sebastian, Dan Zanes, and Happy Traum.

    One of my favorites on the album is “Singing in the Land.” The song features vocals by Mitchell, Merchant, Traum, Sebastian, Ruth Unger, Daniel LIttleton, Michael Merenda, and Lyn Hardy.

    The album also features photos and wonderful liner notes.  The notes include essays by each of Natalie Merchant, Daniel Littleton, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Additionally, Mitchell wrote comments for each song on the album.

    If you are looking for some holiday music that warms your heart and seems significantly removed from the commercialization of Christmas, check out this album. The Sounding Joy: Christmas Songs In and Out of the Ruth Crawford Seeger Songbook by Elizabeth Mitchell and Friends is available from Smithsonian Folkways.

    Information in post comes from the liner notes to The Sounding Joy. What is your favorite lesser-known Christmas album? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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