We then went into the studio with Chris Stamey . . . and that experience took us to the next level musically and really made us a band.
--Tift Merritt
Metro Magazine

From MetroMagazine Online

Nuance, phrasing and a distinctive style

TIFT MERRITT'S BRAMBLE ROSE

Raleigh native Tift Merritt and her band, The Carbines, released in
June their debut album for Lost Highway Records. Titled Bramble Rose,
the record consists of 11 songs written by Tift. This record has been
a long time coming, not only for Tift and her bandmates, but also for
Triangle music fans who've avidly supported the band for years
without even being able to buy a CD.

Bramble Rose is well worth the wait.

This is a superb album loaded with memorable tunes, all of which are
sung by one of the most arresting voices in American music today.
Tift's voice is an instrument capable of breathless fragility and
surprising power. Her range is impressive, as is the melodic nuance
that makes her phrasing so distinctive. Her emotive quality is
reminiscent of Patsy Cline, though as a stylist she's very much in
her own world.

The Carbines--Zeke Hutchins (drums), Greg Readling (steel guitar,
mandolin, keyboards, backing vocals) and Jay Brown (bass, backing
vocals)--carried the instrumental load on Bramble Rose and their
ensemble work is as subtle as it is skillful and strong. They've come
together musically in the last couple of years and, to put it simply,
their sound is Tift's sound.

In commenting on her band, Tift said that "The band solidified slowly
but surely. . . . We
then went into the studio with Chris Stamey, in the fall of 2000, to
record our demos, and that experience took us to the next level
musically and really made us a band."

Tift and the band were intent on looking for a record deal and they
knew they needed to record songs for a demo tape in order to shop
themselves. That need brought them to Stamey, a widely respected
producer and veteran musician based in Chapel Hill.

When Chris started working with us, we were really green," Tift
allowed. "Everybody was like, 'oh, you guys are gonna make a record,
you've got it made.' That was when the pressure was the worst. We
were gonna make a record and we ended up doing demos for these folks
in Nashville instead. We not only didn't know how many songs we could
do in a session; we didn't even know what a session was. It was
really great to get in the studio with Chris, who believed in us and
believed in the freshness of what we were doing. We worked with Chris
like we were making a record, rather than just demos. We went through
all the stuff you go through to make a record."

From FEMMUSIC

The Place For Emerging Women In Music
Caitlin Cary
By Alex Teitz and Karen Weis
 

  The mythology of the band Whiskeytown has become an epic of it's own, but the stories are still being written. One of the best comes from Caitlin Cary and her debut release While You Weren't Looking. This CD is subtley powerful in arrangements and songwriting. It fills the senses and the emotional cup over and over again.
 Cary is straightforward and uncompromising. She speaks honestly and with more experience and confidence than artists twice her age. Cary began as a writer and now speaks with her own voice on While You Weren't Looking. The material and style presented in this album demonstrate that Cary has a long future ahead in music. For more information visit www.caitlincary.com





FEMMUSIC: What was the biggest challenge making While You Weren't Looking?

CC: In some ways, the biggest challenge was finding the record deal that would allow me to get the money to actually make the record in a real way. For probably anybody's first record, it's kind of like this. You get the idea, and then you have to figure out how to make your idea work. It's like starting a business. I'm sure that everyone's first record is kind of like this, where I was having to work…
 I'm really lucky to have Chris Stamey, who was really interested in the project, and willing to commit time. . . . When he had a hole in his schedule, I'd drive to Chapel Hill and we'd work for a couple days at a time. Sort of the piecemeal thing, and in some ways that was really good cause every couple of days or weeks you'd get good distance on it, and go off, sort of like when you're trying to solve a crossword puzzle and the best thing to do is put it down and you think of the answers, or you come back and it looks new. So in some ways that was a good thing.
 But once I finally had-it took me a good solid year and a half of thinking I had this record deal, or thinking I had a record deal and then it would fall through. So finally we got the Yep Roc deal and got money to go and record the way I wanted to record and the way Chris wanted to record, which was to make it more or less a live record. In other words, the band played all the songs and then you go in and add to it, rather than this kind of piecemeal thing. And I think the record definitely benefited from me being able to do that, having working on it so long from afar, to have 6 days in a real nice studio and a band, to play the songs like they meant it. I think it's a good record, a BETTER record than it would have been if we hadn't been able to do that.



FEMMUSIC: I was wondering how it was working with Chris and how you found Chris.

CC: Chris was a supporter of Whiskeytown from way, way back. He would record us whenever we were doing demos, he was there. Unfortunately he wasn't there when we made Faithless Street which was absolutely the most haphazard recording. We went out to this crazy place, and recorded with this crazy . . . guy, and it was fun and whacky, but…From that point on, Chris was always there when we were trying to demo or whatever, and he helped us a ton with pre-production on all of our records. So that's the answer to that.
 When I finally decided I had worked up the guts to make a solo record, all I had to do was call him and he immediately…even though at that point I didn't really have that many songs, I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted. I wanted to make a record, and he was totally game for it. So working with him has been just great. He's fantastic, and committed. He helped me with writing and definitely a lot with arranging. He wouldn't very often make suggestions about lyrics and melodies, but certainly "we need the chorus to comer around again here" or "we definitely need a bridge". He's an amazing vocal coach-vocal coach is the wrong word. I think the hardest thing a producer has to do is put in words, you know, just sort of a dancing to architecture thing. "OK, you're not singing this right," but that doesn't help you very much. And with playing too, telling you in concrete ways how to improve your performance. And he's real nurturing and really frenetic. His energy is fun to pick up on; he's just a ball of energy. I'd go and feel tired and not feel like working, and as soon as you get around him, BAM! You're there. He's an underrated genius, I think.



Rolling Stone review, Caitlin Cary "While You Weren't Looking": ". . . Providing a varied backdrop to Cary's lilting alto, producer Chris Stamey goes from lush to spare, using everything from a horn section to a harmonium to wondrous effect."


Los Angeles Times: Caitlin Cary, Out of the Shadow:
". . . Although all helped boost her confidence, Cary reserves the highest praise for the record's producer, Chris Stamey . . . Stamey sheperded her paradigm shift from backup to leader in ways she can't begin to count. "Where I am now and where I was [before] are so radically different," she says of her songwriting. "He was so very patient at dealing with someone like me," especially because she was only just learning to play guitar and often had to describe her musical ideas more in words than in sounds.


Peter Blackstock, Amazon.com review of "While You Weren't Looking":
Renowned producer Chris Stamey turns in the finest work of his career, crafting upbeat tunes such as "Shallow Heart, Shallow Water," "Thick Walls Down," and "Pony" into unforgettable gems, while fashioning an exquisitely understated backdrop for quieter songs such as "Fireworks" and "Sorry."


Greg Hawks (of the Tremblers), quoted in the Durham Herald-Sun:
" [Chris] has the sharpest ear of anyone I've ever worked with in my life. His ideas on some of the songs, in terms of what to bring in and eq-ing, really took the album to another level. When he presented ideas they were fully thought-out and very well explained, and usually they were ideas that totally worked when tried. He has a genius for knowing what belongs in a song and what doesn't."


Tape Op review, Alejandro Escovedo, "A Man Under the Influence":
"Stamey's eye for clarity ensures that even the most musician-cluttered arrangements feel open, suiting the song's moods. A great album, where the powerful songwriting shines through.