Tift Merritt

Halifax Urban Folk Festival, Halifax on September 3, 2017

Tift Merritt was her typically gentle, friendly self, but there's apparently a lot ruminating under the surface for the veteran.

On this last day in January, with the rain pouring down in the cloying cold outside, upstairs at the Lexington is snug. There’s a dampness in the air as we all warm the wet off each other. The chill that settled into our skin and bones gradually dries away, eased out as Tift Merritt and Eric Heywood (guitar a

The weather outside was frightful but in the bijou performance space upstairs at The Lexington things were positively steaming and swamp like to the extent that Tift Merritt offered to share her backstage beers if the crush (and there was a crush) made it impossible to reach the bar at the back.

She handled them like a pro, however, quipping that the missing left channel in her keyboard in one song was akin to her dress which kept trying to fall off her left shoulder.

Brought up in North Carolina and now based in New York she has the voice and songwriting skills to be a major contender on the country-folk scene as she proved with her confident album Traveling Alone last year.

Tonight I’m at the Purcell Room in London to see Tift Merritt and Simone Dinnerstein playing their 2013 album “Night” (plus some additional tracks that we were lucky enough to hear).