Natalie Merchant

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风格: #当代唱作人
地区: United States of America 美国

艺人介绍

Natalie Merchant绝对不是美女，担任10000 Maniacs的主唱十年，是90年代民谣创作女声风潮中的重要声音之一，创作功力不容小觑。

发现并喜欢上Natalie的过程，让我觉得国内专业媒体似乎罹患了偏食症，按理说以Natalie获得的成功，为何这么多年来我竟然都没有听说过呢？

Merchant的抒怀创作风格，被比拟为流行乐坛的Emily Dickinson (19世纪美国文学界最具影响力的女诗人之一,担任10000 Maniacs的主唱十年，纽约才女歌手Natalie Merchant为质朴动人的民谣添加学院派气质，以”Trouble Me”、”These Are Days”、”Because The Night”等作品跨越全美流行、现代摇滚与成人抒情电台。

Merchant于93年挥别乐团，95年独挑创作行囊发表专辑《Tigerlily》，清新的民谣创作情怀里灌注较为浓郁的情感音质，有点蓝的情绪也变得豁然开朗，一份甜蜜淡雅的成熟性格逐渐成型,专辑本身跟”Carnival”、”Wonder”等单曲，打进Top 20，成为90年代民谣创作女声风潮中的重要声音之一，98年专辑《Ophelia》在商业领域更跃进Top 10，心情唱作呼一下地落入心灵的深渊,创作之余更挺身参加动物权益、家庭暴力、无家可归等社会议题活动。

Merchant用情甚深的抒怀创作风格，甚至被比拟为流行乐坛的Emily Dickinson (19世纪美国文学界最具影响力的女诗人之一，创作多着墨于痛苦与性灵等极端情绪的描述)。

2001年岁末发行专辑《Motherland》请到以《霹雳高手》(Oh Brother Where Art Thou?)电影原声带大出锋头，并曾为The Wallflowers专辑操刀的制作人T Bone Burnett携手寻觅怀旧的草根民谣踪迹，培养20年歌唱情绪与创作才情的Merchant在创作上触及政治现实、社会观与自我内省,甜蜜温柔的歌声小心翼翼的呵护着慨然的告白。

贯穿阿拉伯、北非与雷鬼类型乐风”This House Is On Fire”是在目睹西雅图爆发反世界贸易组织抗议行动与2000年美国总统大选期间佛罗里达州记票事件后所汇聚而成的抗争情绪宣泄，标题歌”Motherland”原有的愤世嫉俗竟在美国911事件后沉淀为对美国梦的悼念；控诉纽约史学展扭曲史实真意的”Saint Judas”与面对男性情感阴险面目的”Build A Levee”请到积极投身人权运动的福音乐团Staples Singers主唱Mavis Staples巩固情绪诉求力量，”Golden Boy”则有对社会暴力事件逐渐泯灭人性本质的省思。

首支鼓舞世人超越人生重担的单曲”Just Can’t Last”、”Not In This Life”跟提醒年轻世代女生要能走出社会所加诸的价值框框”Tell Yourself”回归悦耳流畅的乐风稍稍为堆积的情绪日记降压，”I’m Not Gonna Beg”则是情绪上与曲式上都非常具有传统节奏蓝调精神的自我挑战。

《Motherland》中纷扰不宁的情绪更在作品完工两天后遇到911事件而有了意想不到的发酵,取之于生活观察的创作反过来面对来自现实的冲击，接着就等候你的共鸣指数考验??！

Combining three decades of experience in song writing and album making, Merchant's production style is nuanced and pure. Her voice is framed by a balanced blend of electric and acoustic sound throughout with musicianship of exceptional quality. String, brass, and woodwind arrangements mingle with Hammond organ and electric guitar improvisations. Players include John Medeski, Shawn Pelton, Clark Gayton, Uri Sharlin, Jesse Murphy, Erik Della Penna, Gabriel Gordon, and guest vocalists Simi Stone, Elizabeth Mitchell, and gospel singer Corliss Stafford.

Merchant’s career began when, as a college student, she joined the seminal alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs. Serving as lead vocalist, lyricist, and sometime pianist, Merchant released five critically acclaimed studio albums with the band, including the platinum-selling In My Tribe (1987), Blind Man’s Zoo (1989), Our Time in Eden (1992), and MTV Unplugged (1993). Merchant left the group in 1993, after 12 years, to record her first solo album. Tigerlily (1995) was certified five-times platinum, and was followed by the platinum Ophelia (1998), Natalie Merchant Live (1999), and Motherland (2001).

In 2002 Merchant departed Elektra Records, and a contractual relationship she had been bound to since signing at the age of 19, in 1984. She took an extended hiatus from pop music and major labels, independently releasing a collection of folk music, The House Carpenter's Daughter (Myth America, 2003), which also coincided with the birth of her first child. For the next seven years she lived quietly in New York's Hudson Valley devoting herself to family and community, whilst taking opportunities to collaborate with other musicians and strengthen her commitment to activism and philanthropy.

In 2005 she was appointed by Governor Eliot Spitzer to serve a four-year term on the 20-member board of New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She worked with a group of homeless musicians on a benefit album, Give US Your Poor (2006), and a documentary film, No Good Reason (2006). She worked with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, collaborated with British composer Gavin Bryars and the Royal Shakespeare Company on The Sonnet Project (2007), and in 2008 contributed to the Cowboy Junkies’ 20th anniversary re-recording of their first album, The Trinity Session. Also in 2008, at the invitation of the Boston Pops, Merchant built an orchestral repertoire drawn from her catalogue of songs to perform in concert, a show she continues to expand and perform. She celebrated the 60th anniversary of the declaration of human rights with Amnesty International’s The Price of Silence initiative, and sang with the student choir of The Perkins School for the Blind to raise funds. In 2009 she contributed to David Byrne's song cycle recording, Here Lies Love, based on the life of Imelda Marcos.

In 2010, Merchant returned with a thematic double album entitled Leave Your Sleep, her debut for Nonesuch Records. A meditation on childhood and mothering, the anthology comprised 19th and 20th century American and British classic children's poetry by the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti, Robert Graves, Edward Lear, and E.E. Cummings that Merchant had set to music. She collaborated with 130 musicians in a wide variety of musical styles, handpicking musicians who represent the best in their fields, including the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Fairfield Four, The Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, the Ditty Bops, the New York Philharmonic, The Klezmatics, Lúnasa, and Hazmat Modine. Merchant’s fascination with the poets led her to research their lives and write an 80-page companion book. The result was praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic, with the Wall Street Journal calling it &an ideal fit between poetic and musical forms,& and the Independent, &a hugely ambitious and beautifully realized double album.&

Since the album’s release, Merchant was honored for the project as a New York Public Library Lion in 2011, along with authors Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, and playwright Tony Kushner. That same year, NYC public school children studied a three-month unit on poetry and music with a curriculum drawn from the album. In 2012, Merchant teamed up with award-winning children's book illustrator Barbara McClintock for a new picture book based on Leave Your Sleep published by Farrar Straus Giroux. Inspired by her 2010 TED Talk about the project, Merchant has also developed a live children's orchestral concert that integrates projections of McClintock's illustrations and has presented this educational program to thousands of children in several US cities, including Carnegie Hall this spring.

Merchant remains dedicated to a wide array of social justice and environmental causes. Recently, her attention has been focused on the threats to public health and the environment posed by the natural gas extraction technique of hydraulic fracturing. In 2013 she spearheaded the making of a protest concert film, Dear Governor Cuomo, with New Yorkers Against Fracking, actors Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo, and film makers Jon Bowermaster and Alex Gibney. This month, SHELTER: A Concert Film to Benefit Victims of Domestic Violence, directed and produced by Merchant, will have its first public screening in connection with Eve Ensler's annual One Billion Rising campaign. Merchant is exploring a new approach to protest through filming multi-media events that inform the public, heighten the profile of community organizers, and encourage action. &It's not enough for me anymore to just show up and sing a song at a benefit and feel I've done my bit. I want to offer my skills to create more comprehensive campaigns on behalf of over-strapped and under-staffed non-profits.&

(Nonesuch Records)

Natalie Merchant

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