Highlander Mountain House Salon Series With Tift Merritt

Enjoy world-class artists, songwriters, musicians, and storytellers in the coziest mountain tavern in western North Carolina.
About this Event

ABOUT THE VENUE

Our Salon Series happens in our Ruffed Grouse Tavern at the Highlander Mountain House Hotel. Make dinner reservations before the show during service hours 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm if you choose, then enjoy an incredible music performance by Tift Merritt (separate event ticket must be purchased). Parking available on the property or street behind HMH. Seating for the show is first come first serve.

ABOUT TIFT MERRITT

Tift Merritt is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and musician who wanted to be a writer until her father taught her guitar chords and Percy Sledge songs. In her 20-year career, she has released a critically acclaimed body of work and toured the world with her sonic short stories. The New Yorker calls her “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” Emmylou Harris calls her “a diamond in a coal mine.” Merritt’s reputation as a musician’s musician is earned by the unique and varied creative projects she helms. While Merritt has worked to create her own brand of southern music, never settling for the status quo, her creativity and curiosity have similarly refused pigeonholing.

With Tift Merritt revealing that she has an album of new material on the way after nine years without one, fans may have an instinctual reaction to the fact that it’s titled “Sugar,” as if to say, of course — because they’ve had a sweet tooth for what she has to offer that has gone unsatisfied for a bit.

There is piquant quality to what this North Carolina native has to bring to music that could not arrive at a more necessary time, and the new album, due June 26 via One Riot Records, is every bit as tender and tough-minded as what you would expect from the woman who brought you classic records like “Tambourine” and “Bramble Rose,” and possibly even more joyful. She rediscovered her own full-blown love of making music while working with producer Lawrence Rothman on the project, and that refreshment, combined with an acknowledgement of not-so-sweet times for many of us, makes for a record that is both bracingly real and ebullient.

“This record is very personal and also really powerful,” Merritt says, further explaining: “You know, it’s not like it’s personal in a way that I’m just sitting in the corner thinking and I’m a violet falling apart. It’s super fun and energetic and has the spark of life that inner life really does have.” The first single, “Finest Feelings,” is out now (see the video, with behind-the-scenes footage, below), and the full album can be pre-ordered here.