Friday, 21 February 2025

Natalie Merchant

Natalie Anne Merchant (born October 26, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993.

Early life

Natalie Merchant was born October 26, 1963, in Jamestown, New York, the third of four children of Anthony and Ann Merchant. Her paternal grandfather, who played the accordion, mandolin and guitar, emigrated to the United States from Sicily; his surname was "Mercante" before it was Anglicized.

When Merchant was a child, her mother listened to music (primarily Petula Clark but also the Beatles, Al Green, Aretha Franklin) and encouraged her children to study music, but she wouldn't allow TV after Natalie was 12. "I was taken to the symphony a lot because my mother loved classical music. But I was dragged to see Styx when I was 12. We had to drive 100 miles to Buffalo, New York. Someone threw up next to me and people were smoking pot. It was terrifying. I remember Styx had a white piano which rose out of the stage. It was awe-inspiring and inspirational." "She [her mother] had show tunes, she had the soundtrack from West Side Story and South Pacific. And then eventually... she'd always liked classical music and then she married a jazz musician, so that's the kind of music I was into. I never really had friends who sat around and listened to the stereo and said 'hey, listen to this one', so I'd never even heard of who Bob Dylan was until I was 18." During 1988–1989, Natalie claimed she still didn't have a TV: "I grew up in a house where no one watched the news on television and no one read the paper. I've been discovering these things as I get older, and the news has affected me more than it ever has before."

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Natalie_Merchant

Famous quotes by Natalie Merchant:

"Be true to yourself, and, um, don't worry about some large companies' quarterly profit index."

"I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics."

"I'm on this search trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I have to say to people."

"I don't want to live in a culture of despair. I'd like to live in a culture of hope."

"It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent."

"My sister works in an inner-city school in Greenville, South Carolina, and she brought many of her at-risk kids to our show yesterday to the sound-check. It was amazing how these kids opened up with music. Music teaches so much about focus and concentration and group dynamics and appreciation for subtlety and beauty. And that's being taken away from schools."

"I'm in the public eye. I've sold 14 million records -- so 14 million individuals have bought my records and have sat down and intimately listened to them. And if I think about that many people paying attention to me, I'd better say something worthwhile. I do have a personal ideology when it comes to the work that I do and the art that I make. And it's based on just wanting to say something that has substance and to try to move people with music -- and give them an idea of the glimpse I have into what's possible for us."

"I just want to be known as a good songwriter who wrote songs that were enduring. I hope my music gives people a glimpse of how empathetic we were and how desirous we were of a better society."

"That kind of violence is dangerous to me, to be beamed out via satellite to the rest of the country. Since I don't watch television very much, when I do check in, I'm horrified. But I don't think it took a massacre in a high school in America for me to see that there's too much violence or that children aren't being taught to use their own judgment when they watch television."

"Retrospective 1990-2005 [Limited Edition]"

"I've raised my daughter with no television."

Latest News for: Natalie Merchant

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Rare photo auction announced to benefit musicians impacted by Los Angeles wildfires

The Tennessean 06 Feb 2025

The auction features over twenty one-of-a-kind prints signed by artists, including Dawes, Jason Isbell, Lukas Nelson, Natalie Merchant, Steve Earle, Blake Mills, Yola, Makaya McCraven, and a dozen others.

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