“THERE’S no training for this,” observes Natalie Merchant, reflecting on a singular career that’s taken her from the dive bars of Jamestown to the Library Of Congress, where she was appointed to the American Folklife Center’s board of trustees by Senator Chuck Schumer in November. “That was a great recognition. It doesn’t have the same kind of visibility as an award ceremony. But to me it was like winning a prize for a career of distinction.”
Along the way there have been sodden sleeping bags, Bronx street parades and a trip to Berlin just as the wall was falling. Nothing was planned or mapped out in advance. “The first work that I did with 10,000 Maniacs, I had no clue of what I was doing. And we did it so quickly – we made a whole album in less than a week and I was writing lyrics on the fly.”
Merchant compares that to her impressive, fully orchestrated new, which “took a year to write, four months to record and involves 35 people”. She’s currently knee-deep in plans for the accompanying tour, which promises to be a lavish, rousing affair. “I expanded a lot of arrangements from the past to add woodwinds and brass, which is exciting. But it hasn’t been simple – last Monday I think we spent 13 solid hours just sorting paper. I keep asking everyone, ‘Is this what Beyoncé does?’ while I’m crawling around on the floor trying to put things in alphabetical order!”
