Telluride Americana Fest: Tift Merritt & Hayes Carll Headline at Opera House

Tift Merritt

Three-day passes are available for the Telluride Americana Music Fest & Songwriter Showcase at the Sheridan Opera House, July 18–20. The event features Tift Merritt, Hayes Carll, John Fullbright, The Wagoneers, Eric Brace & Peter Cooper, and Lincoln Durham. New York songwriter Greg Trooper  also performs at a VIP event for the Festival.

North Carolina native Tift Merritt was described by The New Yorker as “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” Her 2002 record Bramble Rose put her on the Americana map forever. Her acoustic guitar/piano shows are personal and evocative.

Hayes Carll is a classic Texas troubadour. A mix of slacker, literate, and romantic, he is always ready to skewer hypocrisy and pomposity.

“I guess you could say I write degenerate love songs,” Hayes has said. “That, and songs about people who’re wedged between not much and even less; people who see how hopeless it is and somehow make it work anyway.”

John Fullbright, who joins Merritt on the Saturday bill, is one of the hottest young singer-songwriters in the country. He was recently nominated for a Grammy for his latest record, From the Ground Up. This young man from Okemah, Oklahoma (Woody Guthrie’s hometown) echoes the best of his home state tradition along with Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, and others.

Roots/blues picker Lincoln Durham will open for Hayes Carll on Friday night. His rasping growl and slide guitar work is both old and new.

Hayes Carll

Thursday night features Eric Brace & Peter Cooper, master storytellers and performers from Nashville. They will be joined by The Wagoneers, a classic Austin honky-tonk-and-ballads band fronted by the great songwriter Monte Warden. They helped lay the groundwork for the Americana movement of the 1990’s, then disbanded, and reunited in 2011. A new record is forthcoming this year.

“We try to bring in the best of both established and new songwriters,” said Steve Stagner, founder and co-­‐producer of the event with the Sheridan Arts Foundation. “The Opera House is one of the best venues in the country for this kind of music and we try to do it justice. People come to really listen.”

Three-­‐day passes with reserved seating are available for $135 on www.sheridanoperahouse.com. Single night tickets will be available at a later date, subject to availability.

For a preview of the show, watch this video of Tift Merritt in action.