OXFORD: The Bullingdon

Friday 23rd November, 2012

7:30pm

Event information

I am delighted to have been able to book Tift on this very short tour in support of her new album ‘Travelling Alone’, and with a full band too. She has not toured the UK since 2010 and not with a band for many years.

The New Yorker has called Merritt “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry,” a standard upholding that got underway in earnest with ‘Bramble Rose’, the 2002 solo debut that put her on the Americana map forever. As her sophomore album, ‘Tambourine’, was followed by ‘Another Country’ and ‘See You on the Moon’, Merritt found acclaim coming not just from critics and awards organisations but her own heroes, like Emmylou Harris, who marveled that Merritt “stood out like a diamond in a coal patch.” Now a leading lady in her own right, Merritt is hardly one to hog the spotlight. She engages in dialogue with fellow artists of all disciplines on her public radio broadcast and podcast “The Spark With Tift Merritt,” bringing in fellow sojourners ranging from Patty Griffin and Rosanne Cash to Rick Moody and Nick Hornby (who devoted a chapter to Merritt in his 31 Songs book).

“I’ve always had a taste for traveling alone,” Tift Merritt sings in the title track of her fifth album. This time around, she got to prove it, “calling the shots myself and letting myself go wherever I needed to go” at a point in time when she was a free agent without label or manager. And Merritt put together her “dream cast” of fellow travelers to play on ‘Traveling Alone’, which found its happy home at her new label, Yep Roc. The road less taken doesn’t preclude good company.

For ‘Traveling Alone’, Merritt knew—and got—exactly the journeymen she wanted with her on this 11-track trip: legendary guitarist Marc Ribot, Calexico drummer John Convertino, steel player extraordinaire Eric Heywood, acclaimed jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist Rob Burger, and longtime cohort Jay Brown on bass. As captured by producer Tucker Martine (known for working with the Decemberists, and one of Paste magazine’s “10 Best Producers of the Decade”) and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Ryan Freeland, the sound is both spare and luxurious.

Rod Picott

Rod Picott is the songs he sings. Since before Woody Guthrie songwriters have soaked their public image in the sepia tones of the working life but Picott bears the real life scars of living that life. Rod Picott's songs are inhabited by sheetrock hangers, drinkers, circus hands, boxers and working girls and he sings about his characters with intimacy.

The son of a welder and former Marine,  Picott grew up in the small mill town of South Berwick, Maine. His father's record collection spanned Ray Charles to John Philip Sousa and James Brown. His older brother introduced him to the punk poetry of Lou Reed and Patti Smith. The tall, wiry framed Picott worked construction jobs from his high school graduation until the release of his first cd, 'Tiger Tom Dixon's Blues' in 2001.

In the Folk and Americana world Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Fred Eaglesmith have been declared some the best writers working and they have all recorded songs written or co-written by Rod Picott. Picott's "Broke Down" released on Rounder Records by co-writer and artist Slaid Cleaves became the most played song on Americana radio and was awarded the song of the year award at the Austin Music Awards.

Rod Picott has released five solo cds and one cd with sometimes duo partner Amanda Shires-- all to excellent reviews and extensive touring. Picott has been featured in No Depression magazine, on BBC 2 Radio London, Sirius/XM Radio and in Maverick magazine (U.K.) Picott has produced a CD for Rounder Records, toured as opening act for Alison Krauss and Union Station and played the prestigious Shrewsbury Folk and Maverick festivals in England and the Take Root & Blue Highways Festivals in Holland. The very definition of a modern troubadour Picott tours the U.S. in a Jeep Cherokee with a current odometer reading of 276,300 miles. Picott also tours annually in Europe and the U.K. to the tune of 130 plus shows yearly.