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Rating:  -
Tift Merritt's Bramble Rose is the most complex female country music album since Trish Yearwood's Real Live Woman. This is not a teenaged girl falling in and out of crushes like so many so-called strong women of the day. This is a woman who happens across men, considers the possibility of a relationship with them, then feels her way through the rest of life. "You're not my boyfriend/I don't want a boyfriend" she asserts in the first line of "Trouble Over Me," "I don't want you for life/but don't we get along fine." The rest of her album explores life and love in much this same way.
This is a real woman, a complex woman, one with a life and friends as well as a man. She lays it out to a male friend/possible love interest in "Neighborhood," "Honey you don't look good/baby you can run 'round with just anybody in the neighborhood." However, she advises her friend to go after love in Diamond shoes "No one can win a heart like yours/but damned if he ain't tryin'." Perhaps the strongest cut on the album is "Sunday" a tribute to the day of lounging in bed and visiting your mother. "Supposed to Make You Happy" is a heart wrenching look at relationship failure. In the middle of songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" Merritt offers "Bird of Freedom," which explores rather than asserts patriotism. However, it is perhaps in the title track when she gives all of us, to borrow a Susan Werner phrase, last of the good straight girls, a new song about, "a real good woman, nobody knows."
Tift Merritt has earned a number of comparisons to Emmilou Harris. Part of it is she has a similar whispy, etheral country/folk voice. Another part of it is her ability to mix genres and still come out sounding distinctly country. However, comparing her to Emmilou Harris is like comparing Allison Moorer to Tammy Wynette. Both may bring to mind their heriones of old, but each has a sound that will always be their own.
Rating:  -
Probably the coolest thing about Tift Merritt's debut album is that she doesn't allow you to develop staid, static expectations about her. You'll be grooving along with "Virginia, No One Can Warn You," feeling mellow enjoying that beautiful soprano; then suddenly she'll swing into "Neighborhood," with its guitar and vocals to blister paint, and you're out of your chair dancing before you can even stop yourself.
There's no mistaking this for anything but a debut album. Good as it is, there's a certain unsteadiness about it. Whenever Merritt moves away from her comfort zone in country music's heyday, she still seems to be feeling her way around, as though she's in this area for the first time. But when she's in her metier, wow, this is music you'll continue hearing in your dreams.
Tift Merritt would have been in the mainstream of country music not so long ago, when mainstream country was still good. It's easy to imagine songs like "Sunday" being recorded by Loretta Lynn. "Diamond Shoes" could be a cover of Jessi Colter for its brass and its musicality. Now that mainstream country has become so slick and bland, Merritt has been hung with the "alt" label and her albums don't move half the copy they deserve. Fans of true country should be offended.
This album sometimes has the feel of a learning effort, but at the same time, she's also teaching us to open up to a new voice in a new way. Tift Merritt is a name to watch, and this is an album to listen to several times. It doesn't let you go lightly.
Rating: -
The Amazon review is right on target and tactful - amazing voice but not much of a lyricist yet. I heard about Tift from a friend who was floored by her in concert, and picked up the CD. It is a minor favorite of mine because of her lovely voice, and because of the touching lyrics of two of the songs ("Trouble Over Me" and "Supposed To Make You Happy"). Even these, however, are just brilliant choruses with little built around them. They remind me of the Jewel song, "Hands", in which the chorus of "In the end, only kindness matters" is a great line, but there's just not much of a song written around that line. Maybe Jewel isn't a good singer to use for an analogy on an alt-country web page. Someone below wrote that this is like discovering a long-lost Emmylou album, and I do see some similarity. Tift Merritt has an undeniably beautiful voice as did the young Emmylou, but her songwriting is as patchy as that of the young Emmylou, whose early recordings wisely consisted in large part of great songs written by others.
I like this CD as a pleasant half hour of someone else doing alt-country well, but the lyrics are not Lucinda Williams, no matter what you may read below, and the voice, though extremely pretty, and indeed reminiscent of 1970's Linda Ronstadt as well as a number of other young singers in this genre, isn't as strong, at least on this CD. I'm told it's more impressive in person. I recommend this recording, but as someone wrote below, you're less likely to be disappointed if you don't believe the hype (OK, I haven't read the hype) comparing her voice to Bonnie Raitt's or her songwriting to Lucinda Williams. Comparisons below to Kathleen Edwards or Kasey Chambers are more apt, though again she sings better than either and her songwriting isn't quite up to either's level.
Rating: -
I saw Tift Merritt at a small venue in Chicago, and was completely blown away at her talent. She has a phenomenal voice, and plays every instrument on the stage. Such an incredible stage presence, and a wonderful voice. Can't wait for more of her music!
Rating: -
I am not a huge fan of country music - perhaps because my father played it constantly, so when I saw this CD labeled as a new "country" artist I was sure that I would not want to pick this one up -- but something told me to give it a try - and am I ever glad I did. This is easily one of my favorite artists, and her Cd has not left my player in the months that I have owned it. Her lyrics, and her voice just speak to me .. Everyone on my Christmas list got this CD.. I hope that Tift Merritt becomes the superstar she deserves to be!
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