Mississippi roots serve musician well

By Raymond Reeves
rareeves@jackson.gannett.com

Merchant

Sweet tea has been called the chardonnay of the South.

Ice-cold glasses of the amber blend of tea, water and sugar conjures up all kinds of memories. Shelby Merchant hopes his debut CD, dubbed Sweet Tea, will do the same.

Merchant, a Jackson native with family ties to Madison county, is living in Nashville now. The Ryman Auditorium, original setting of the Grand Ole Opry, is his professional home, where he mixes work as a stagehand with his efforts to put down roots as a singer and songwriter.

"He started doing music in high school, just playing around, and when he'd come home, because we had a piano in the house, we'd all gather around and sing a lot," said Teresa Saxton, of Madison, Merchant's aunt.

Merchant lived in Jackson until age 3, when his family moved to North Carolina. He maintained his Mississippi roots, spending every summer in the area until he was 15.

"He's very laid-back, a person who enjoyed the good ol' country life," Saxton said. "He'd spend his summers with his Grandpa (Howard) Merchant, a retired fireman who lives here and also had the family place down in Morton.

"During the summers, he'd go down there and fish and hunt; he loved it."

The influence of those Mississippi summer days is something Merchant readily admits is laced throughout the songs on Sweet Tea.

"A good chunk of my life was spent there hanging out with family members," Merchant said. "My grandpa had a very simple way of life and doing things, and I learned a lot from him — whether it be catfishing or helping to take care of people in the community. That small-town tour is kind of lined throughout my songs."

The appreciation of music and songwriting, at least from a professional standpoint, starte d with a friend who took Merchant to a three-day festival in North Carolina while he was in high school. The festival introduced him to genres of music outside of the country with which he was familiar.

He heard songs he knew but sung in different ways, and songs and styles he didn't know caught his attention. Seeing artists of various types and levels of popularity working their craft gave him enough of a glimpse behind the curtain to intrigue him.

Although his true love is songwriting, he also enjoys the immediate feedback that comes from performing. It was also the best way to get his name out in front of other people.

"It seems to go hand-in-hand. The only way to get your songs heard is to perform them," Merchant said. "You learn what people latch onto when you're playing live. You try and find that one thing that connects with somebody, and you can see it on their face immediately. ... Personally, I think that if you're going to be a songwriter, you have to perform for people."

Music tends to be an interesting hybrid; although it's often geared for public consumption, the background to the songs can sometimes be intensely private. Straddling those two seemingly opposite worlds requires great balance — and sometimes proper permission.

Among the songs on Sweet Tea is one he wrote as a marriage proposal to his now-wife Karen. That would not have been included without her approval.

Another track was written about a close friend's young daughter and the joy she brought to her family's — and Merchant's — life. Tragically, she died right about the time the song was finished. Merchant played the song for them, then sought their acceptance before considering it for the album.

Daniel Dennis works as a recording engineer at the Ryman Auditorium in addition to running his own recording studio. He and fellow employee Merchant hit it off, leading eventually to Dennis' producing Sweet Tea for Merchant.

"One morning before the doors opened (at the auditorium), he was playing one of his songs on the stage," Dennis said. "His voice and his style really grabbed me, but the songwriting was what blew my mind. He had a new perspective and new ideas and we started hanging out and recording. A demo deal turned into this full album."

The album was released in late October. It's available at his Web site, Cups in Madison, BeBop locations around Jackson, the Morton General Store and a barbecue restaurant in North Carolina. In addition, he was asked if he would be interested in selling Sweet Tea in the Ryman gift shop, alongside items from the legendary artists who had performed there.

Merchant has sold out his stock at the Ryman twice.

The discs at other locations — including Morton — have sold out as well.

"I have achieved what I came to Nashville to do. I've performed at places I wanted to, I got a job at the Ryman, which I wanted to do, and I recorded an album in Nashville," Merchant said. "Anything else from now on is icing on the cake."