by: David Belcher (page 20)
FOURTEEN years and nine albums into her career, Natalie Merchant visits Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket on Sunday night to unveil what she proudly describes as "the first record that turned out sounding exactly the way I'd always imagined a record of mine would".
Her second LP since leaving 10,000 Maniacs in 1994, Ophelia (on the East West label) has also been acclaimed by one critic as "the album Natalie Merchant has always promised to make". [webmaster's note: Natalie left the Maniacs in 1993]
Unlike her stark-sounding debut solo LP, the three-million-selling Tigerlily, Ophelia was primarily conceived as an exercise in spontaneity, warmth, and natural lushness. To this end, it was recorded with a large cast of invited musicians in the studio which Natalie herself helped build inside the garage at her home in upstate New York. [webmaster's note: Tigerlily has sold 4 million copies]
"The control-booth is in what used to be a closet in my bedroom," she tells me, thereafter unexpectedly confessing to having become a flooring and walling expert during the construction process. Not unnaturally, Natalie's studio shaped the creation of Ophelia.
"I wanted a free, experimental atmosphere that all the musicians would feel comfortable with. I didn't want to obsess over getting the ultimate and perfect version of every song... I wanted a great and emotional version of every song. We didn't do any overdubs. We went for a natural analogue sound, and I think we got it. I'd like to think it's a pretty good album."
You're not wrong, ma'am. Natalie's helpers constitute an impressive and disparate list of 35 musicians. There's English minimalist composer Gavin Bryars; English early music consort Fretwork; emergent New York jazz trumpeter Chris Botti; Zairean guitar superstar Lokua Kanza; Tibetan devotional singer Yungchen Llhamo; former Brand New Heavies' funk-soul diva N'Dea Davenport, plus a spot of guitar psychedelia from the renowned ambient knob-twiddler Daniel Lanois. Such globe-trotting eclecticism should not be surprising, despite the fact that Natalie Merchant grew up in the small American town of Jamestown, located midway between Cleveland and Buffalo.
"Jamestown is part of America's economically-depressed northeastern rust belt. It was once known for making fine furniture, but the factories are all closed, and the Maniacs grew up within a culture of abandonment. Our lyrics had a sense of nostalgia for better times.
"We were part of that generation which couldn't find contentment at home. We fled to college, drifted to the cities. But I must say that I certainly enjoyed the social aspect of growing up in a small-town community. I was part of a Sicilian neighbourhood, surrounded by grandmothers and the smells of baking bread and fresh home-made pasta.
"I was happy to be off running round the forests all day, a real Nature Girl, but at the same time I grew up without any cultural diversity. In fact, music provided the only sense of anything different.
"I grew up listening to English, Scottish, and Irish folk musicians playing traditional British folk songs: Archie Fisher, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Martin Carthy.
"Of course, I was also listening to glitter-rock, gospel, Dylan, Woody Guthrie, American bluegrass, and country music.
"We're cultural mongrels in the US - we grow up believing we can do anything, but it's still odd to think of me as this American child of Sicilian immigrants being moved by melodies coming at me from very different countries that had existed 200 years earlier."
Did this formative exposure to the Celtic vibe assist 10,000 Maniacs during their initial visit to these shores in the mid-eighties?
Natalie is unsure. "My strongest Scottish memory of 1984 actually came from playing at a May Ball at Cambridge University... all these Scottish boys wearing kilts, dancing in a very dignified way, with their girlfriends in long gowns."
Talk of the eternal homme-femme danse d'amour brings us neatly to Natalie's well-publicised and longstanding friendship with REM's Michael Stipe.
Coincidentally, both parties are presently in Britain, thus prompting a London Sunday broadsheet to ask each of them for their memories of their first meeting.
"I'm most interested in seeing what Michael says when the article comes out, but the way I remember it was me shamelessly pursuing him over a couple of shows. I saw so many similarities been the two of us that I felt I could simply go up to him and say: 'We have to be friends!'
"We met eventually at a party, and Michael was very rude to me. He handed me a paper bag and asked me to hold it for him. Like an obedient puppy, I held it for two solid hours - and, of course, Michael had disappeared. Then he came back, took the bag, and went again. We've joked about it for years."
In the same way, madam, we, your loyal fans, will be with you on Sunday, and forever more.