By J. Mark Dudick (page h7)
In her new video, Natalie Merchant leans on a baby grand and stares into the camera. Normally, she sways in front of a microphone stand with her five-piece band behind her. But for her newest single, Life Is Sweet, the unflappable performer sings directly to the audience, ensuring her message comes across.
"I wrote the song with young people in mind. Life is short. I wanted to tell them not to be overwhelmed by what they're told to feel. I hope they'll appreciate what they have. That they don't buy into the cliches we grow numb to."
Merchant called last week from her hotel room in Hawaii. She had arrived a week early before starting a concert minitour that includes a show in Maui, two in Tokyo and a sold-out gig Sunday at Egan Center. The former singer-songwriter for 10,000 Maniacs sounded younger than her 35 years. Attentive and unrushed, she talked the way she sings -- haunting, laid-back, often bordering on monotone. One thing's for certain: Music is the biggest part of her life.
"I have to do it because I love it."
That realization was a long time coming, but it's obvious in her two highly successful solo CDs -- 1995's vocal-heavy Tigerlily and last year's music-oriented Ophelia. Except for one traditional folk ditty, When They Ring the Golden Bells, she wrote and produced every song. But then again, since 1981 and over seven albums, she penned nearly every tune for the Maniacs. Only she filtered them through the rest of the guys in the band for discussion and approval. That process grew tiresome till the allure of a solo career beckoned. She gave the band two years' notice, then left with no regrets.
"It was exciting," she said. "I could decide when and with whom I was working. Suddenly, my life was mine."
After a year off, Merchant started recording. She borrowed money so the record company couldn't influence the process. Next, she rounded up a small group of musicians. They lived together for six months in the studio. To add to the commotion, Merchant switched management -- wisely, as it turned out -- to Bruce Springsteen's manager. He proved supportive and protective, she said.
"He told the record company every week that I knew what I was doing."
Ever since age 17, when she hooked up with 10,000 Maniacs, Merchant sensed that her avocation, if nothing else, would get her out of Jamestown, N.Y. Not that her childhood was bad. She survived the harsh winters and a strict Roman Catholic upbringing. Merchant's pastoral world blossomed shortly after her mother took a job in the art department at Jamestown Community College. Suddenly, the '70s occurred and Merchant was immersed in hippies and artists and courses in the visual and performing arts, she said.
"It was cool being a kid. I lived in the countryside surrounded by grapes and the dairy industry. I grew up in the hinterlands with a lot of really progressive people."
Merchant wasn't a rebel, but she knew she was destined for an impractical life. And confidence didn't arrive easily. She performed with the Maniacs for six years before she felt like a professional musician. But she had good reason: She hardly could afford rent. Didn't own a car till she was 26. Toured in a van. Often slept on the floor and didn't file an income-tax form till 1986.
"Being an artist doesn't guarantee a fruitful existence," she said.
The album In My Tribe in 1987 changed all that. Tunes like What's the Matter Here and Don't Talk rocketed the Maniacs beyond cult status.
One song on the CD -- Hey Jack Kerouac, a tune about the beats talking to each other from the grave -- haunted Merchant years later when she met beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Merchant worried about the lyric: "Allen, baby, why so jaded? Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded?"
Ginsberg never mentioned the rhyme, but Merchant apologized anyway. As a matter of fact, several musicians on Ophelia performed with Ginsberg at one time or another before his death a few years ago. Merchant dedicated the entire CD to him and one heavily orchestrated cut, King of May, is about him.
"Farewell today/ travel on now/ be on your way/ make way for the last King of May/ Make a hole in the sky for him/ and raise your voices up/ with your loving cup/ to his long life."
Three years between CDs allowed plenty of time for growth, as in lush orchestral arrangements, harmonies, keyboards, lively vocals and building a recording studio in her garage, where Ophelia was recorded. Again, Merchant strove for creative control.
"You work for a year to write a song and it's kind of painful when some stranger hired by the record company comes in and tells you something's wrong."
The result is a lush sound more alive than the stark arrangements of Tigerlily. She invited more than 30 musicians, including Karen and Don Peris of Innocence Mission and producer Daniel Lanois (Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, U2) to sit in on guitar. She met the legendary studio technician during a benefit at Carnegie Hall and always imagined his techno pedal-enhanced guitar on a cut called Thick As Thieves. Lanois stayed at her house for three days, slept on the floor and recorded his parts in the bathroom.
As a matter of fact, Merchant approached each tune as a series of character workshops, and invited specific musicians for each cut. The result proved spontaneous, and many fans might think it's autobiographical. But that's not surprising, she said.
"It took me a long time to realize it, but music is my life."