NATALIE MERCHANT

Natalie Merchant
returns to Sheraton

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By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

Whither Natalie Merchant's heart?

The folk-pop chanteuse has re-emerged after a three-year absence with a new album. The songs of "Motherland" show her at her most, in her words, "overtly political" and "(most) intimately personal."

How the usually effusive Merchant will perform these atypical songs live we'll soon find out, as Merchant returns next week to the Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel's Hawaii Ballroom. Then it's off to Kauai and Maui for two shows before departing for Japan and Australia for the remainder of her tour.

Merchant will more than likely be accompanied by her longtime band of keyboardist Elizabeth Steen, guitarists Erik Della Penna and Gabriel Gordon, bassist Graham Maby and new drummer Matt Chamberlain. On her last visit here, she was romantically involved with former drummer Peter Yanowitz, but if some of the lost-love songs on "Motherland" are any indication of her private life -- including the cautionary back-to-back songs "Put the Law on You" and "Build a Levee," a bittersweet, Spanish-inflected "The Worst Thing" and the quietly determined album-enders "Not in This Life" and "I'm Not Gonna Beg" -- she certainly mined the hurt for all its worth.

It also sounds like her voice may have deepened a bit, matching much of the emotional gravity of songs like the title tune and "This House Is on Fire." Over a North African-Egyptian groove, Merchant's lyrics on the latter were inspired by the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle and the presidential ballot dispute in Florida. And "Motherland," she has said, has become "a desperate plea of innocence ... the death of nostalgia and dreams" in light of Sept. 11.

Her progressive-mindedness is still evident on songs such as "Saint Judas" (inspired by a photography exhibit on lynching), an atmospheric rumination on celebrity-hood called "Golden Boy" and a buoyant offering to insecure teenage girls everywhere, "Tell Yourself," which, along with the album's first single, "Just Can't Last," shows her fans the strong, knowing and sympathetic side of the singer-songwriter they've come to love.

"Although I've always had a passion for rhythm and blues and gospel music," she wrote in the album's press release, "I've been reluctant to make obvious references to these styles in my own writing, but with 'Motherland,' I felt it was time to 'fess up and acknowledge some of my teachers. I've spent countless hours listening to gospel and soul singers. These are some of the women who taught me how to talk about love and lust, how to cry and comfort, how to beg and when to be proud. I don't want any barriers of race or class in my music."

Natalie Merchant Where: Hawaii Ballroom, Sheraton Waikiki Hotel When: 8 p.m. Wednesday, doors open at 6:30 (there will be no opening act) Admission: $37.50 reserved seating Call: 526-4400 Also >> Jan. 25 in the ballroom of the Kauai Marriott Resort. Tickets $40 general. >> Jan. 26 in the Maui Arts and Cultural Center A&B Amphitheater. Tickets $30 and $40. Call (808) 242-SHOW (7469).

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