Hello everyone.  I had the fortune of seeing Tift in New Orleans this past Thursday and Friday (3/27 & 3/28/08).  I thought that I would share my experiences with all of you here.

On Thursday, 3/27/08, Tift conducted a Master Class on the art and craft of songwriting in conjuction with the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, which is an annual event in New Orleans.   The lecture was held in a beautiful gallery wing of The Historic New Orleans Collection.  The room had a grand chandeleir and the walls were adorned with old paintings.  Tift stood at the front and gave a lecture, followed by a Q&A session.  I took some notes during the lecture and thought that I would share some of the points that stood out to me.

The lecture focused on the parallels and differences between songwriting and writing a novel, short story, or poem.  She began by talking about finding 3 or 4 good lines and how a song can take off from there.  She read from the collected works of Eudora Welty to illustrate this point.  I am not familiar with Welty, but as Tift read, she repeated the lines, "Goodbye Lilly."  To further illustrate this point, she sang a few lines (acapella) from Natural Woman. 

She stated that she didn't want to get too technical in regard to discussing the music (or composing of music) itself.  For the musically inclined here (which isn't me), she stated that its all about the 1, 4, 5.  The 4 wants to go to the 5 and the 5 wants to go to the 1.  She illustrated this by playing some chords on a keyboard.  When asked about her editing process, she stated that Stray Paper and Plainest Thing are 2 of her favorite songs that she has written and that she worked very hard for them.  She mentioned that she filled almost an entire notebook to complete Stray Paper all by itself. 

Some random ponits brought forth in the Q&A portion:

* I Know Him Too was written at the kitchen table.

* The bridge more or less spells out the song.

* Some of her non-musical influences include author Cormac McCarthy, photographer Robert Frank, and artist Cy Twombly.

* Currently she enjoys listening to Feist, M. Ward and Wilco.  She's also currently driving her band crazy with her phase of listening to old Van Morrisson records.

* She had some interesting thoughts in response to a question about critics.  She told a story about how the local paper gave her a bad review on the Sunday before the Tuesday release of Bramble Rose.  She found out about the review because her mom kept avoiding her calls.  She finally confronted her and said, "Mom, why are you avoiding me?  Did I get a bad review?"  Her mom answered "Yes."  It was a funny moment.

* She ended by playing Another Country and Good Hearted Man on keyboard.

I chatted with her briefly afterwards.  I had brought my Bramble Rose LP and a silver sharpie.  The sharpie wouldn't come out on the slick surface of the LP.  I felt like a goof, but she was so nice and loved seeing a copy of the actual vinyl in someone's hands.

------------------------------------------------

The next night, Friday, 3/28/08, Tift played a solo show at The Parish Room at the House of Blues.  Before the show, I had dinner at the House of Blues restaurant.  It was quite a frenzy there in the French Quarter with it being Spring Break and all.  Food Network host, Guy Fiore was in the resaturant as well and people were swarming him.  It all seemed a bit crazy. 

After eating, we headed over to the venue.  The Parish is a smallish room and is usually standing room only.  For Tift's show, there was limited seating near the stage, which I was glad to see.  We sat in the second row. 

Singer/Songwriter Paul Sanchez opened the show.  He is from New Orleans and turned out a great set of locally influenced music.  I definitely suggest checking his music out.  He has a myspace page and wrote a new blog entry about his weekend lecturing and playing with Tift---and a story about Guy from Food Network!  What a small world!

By the time Tift got to the stage, all of the seats were filled and the back of the room had a lot of people standing.  It seemed like a nice turnout.  Here's the setlist:

Something to Me

Hopes Too High (with no amp)

My Heart is Free

Another Country

I Know What I'm Looking for Now

Keep You Happy

Broken

Stray Paper

Tender Branch

Good Hearted Man

Mille Tendresses

(Encores)

Supposed To Make You Happy (no amp)

Ain't Looking Closely

Virginia, No One Can Warn You

Plainest Thing

During the show, she mentioned that My Heart is Free was written about a cousin of hers that was in WW1.  She brought a stack of his letters with her when she went to Paris to work on the new album.  She also stated that she had a cousin in the audience that she had never met.  She said that happens a lot to people that are from North Carolina (laughter ensued)!  She also had a bottle of wine and some cups at the foot of the stage.  She said that she couldn't finish it all by herself, so she brought the cups so that people could help themsleves during the show.  A girl in the front row started passing the cups around a few songs later.  It was all in good fun.  The show was great and the audience was so respectful and well behaved.  I say that because we've been to some pretty rowdy shows at the House of Blues in New Orleans.

Since she was solo and would be joining back up with the band for the tour the next day in Pittsburgh, there was no merch available.  She did have copies of Another Country for sale after the show.  She had brought the cds with her and she sold them herself at the merch table after the show.   She's a one woman promotional machine!  I met her again and got an extra copy of Another Country since she was signing them.  I just can't stress how nice and accomodating she was to each person in line. 

I have photos of both events, but haven't had time to look through them yet.  Hopefully, I'll have some to share soon. 

sam