About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2023)
LIFE The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Midweek Edition-April 12-13, 2023 3B Natalie Merchant emerges from hiatus after surgery Times File Photo Jensen Cochran, 1, checks out the inside of an excavator with his father, Jonathan, during the Touch-A-Truck event at City Park on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. Touch-A-Track in Gainesville now set to return to City Park BY MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK — As the nation went through a health emergency in 2020, so did Natalie Merchant. The singer-songwriter had major spine surgery just four days before lockdown, with three bones removed from her neck and an incision made over her vocal cords. She lost her voice and suf fered nerve damage in her right hand. It took nine months to get her voice back and a year to get her hand to behave. And yet out of that came not bitterness or anger, but love: The heart-forward new album “Keep Your Courage.” “This album sort of grew out of all that. It was a health crisis, but also everything was in crisis in the world,” she says. “We all turned inward and held on to each other. And the only thing that really mattered was love. Love and caring for people.” “Keep Your Courage” has some of Merchant’s best songwriting, with melo dies that veer from Gaelic to Middle Eastern, delving into horn-driven soul, melan choly ballads, pure pop and defiant sisterhood anthems. The last lines are: “Love will conquer all.” “It wasn’t until I wrote the liner notes that I realized how connected all the songs were,” she says from her home in New York’s Hudson Valley. “This is kind of a de facto concept record.” The 10-track collection is rooted in myth and leg end, with some songs titled “Come on, Aphrodite,” “Nar cissus,” “Tower of Babel” and “The Feast of Saint Val entine.” Joan of Arc graces the cover. “It’s very valuable to use cultural references because they carry so much meaning and iconic symbolism. Dur ing the pandemic, it really felt like we were living in the myth,” she says. “I really turn to mythology not to understand what’s happen ing, but to see a reflection of what’s happening in our con temporary world. ” Abena Koomson-Davis, musical director of The Resistance Revival Chorus, and Merchant first duetted at a Radio City Music Hall benefit for healthcare work ers impacted by COVID-19 and instantly felt something click. “It was kind of like our voices met and said, ‘Hey, I know you! We’re friends.’ And then our relationship followed,” Koomson-Davis says, laughing. “Our voices kind of introduced us to each other.” The album kicks off with both women singing “Big Girls” and “Come on, Aph rodite.” Other songs include “Sister Tilly,” a loving ode to the trailblazing women of her mother’s generation — “Your Rilke poems and your stacks of Mother Jones,” she sings — and “Song of Him self,” a “love letter” to poet Walt Whitman with the lyr ics, “Come sing your song of love bold, brave and proud.” “I read his poetry like sacred text. It’s really, really helpful to me, helps me,” Merchant says. “It rein forces my hope for human ity, and it makes me pause and notice the miracles all around me.” She chose an image of Joan of Arc — a photo of a sculpture of the young woman in armor with a sword over her heart — as the symbol of courage, a warrior for love. “I think women need a suit of armor these days, as we always have. We keep thinking that we’re moving toward a more just liberal society where women can feel safe, and yet sexual violence against especially young women is higher than it’s been in decades.” Merchant is preparing to tour the new music, with stops this spring and summer in such cities as Pittsburgh, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Merchant first made musi cal waves in the the 1980s with the band 10,000 Maniacs — with such hits as “These Are Days” and “Trouble Me” — and followed in the 1990s with a successful solo career, beginning with the hit album, “Tigerlily,” which included “Carnival.” “Keep Your Courage” emerges as a triumph over personal pain. Merchant went under the knife, risk ing paralysis, a lost voice and possibly death. She recov ered in a neck brace, unable to see a doctor in person due to lockdowns, relying on friends and her soon-to-be-in college daughter. BY DONNELL SUGGS dsuggs@ gainesvilletimes.com Ever wonder what the view is like from the driv er’s seat of a bulldozer? How big is the steering wheel of a dump truck? Or how loud can you beep the horn of a big rig? Well, wonder no longer — Gainesville Parks and Recreation’s Touch-A- Truck is back. Slated for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at City Park, the free annual event has allowed every day citizens to climb aboard emergency vehi cles and some of the big gest trucks on the road for more than 20 years. This year, more than 20 trucks of all sizes will be on site, including a Mack truck, an 18-wheel truck, which has eight tires on the trailer and ten tires on the tractor, dump trucks, Hall County Fire Rescue vehicles and Gainesville Police cars, according to Gainesville Parks and Recreation marketing and communications manager Julie Butler Colombini. “Participants love climbing in and around their favorite vehicles,” Colombini said. “It is truly a family affair.” Along with the cars and trucks, the event will fea ture concession stands and a Kona Ice cart, plus live music provided by a DJ. According to Colombini, Touch-A-Truck allows families to explore vehi- Touch-A-Truck Where: City Park, 898 Longstreet Circle, Gainesville When: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 15 How much: Free More info: gainesville. org/384/Parks- Recreation cles that they see each and every day. 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