Header image: Tift Merritt (L) and Rissi Palmer (R). Photos courtesy of the artists
This July 4, come to Capitol 250: North Carolina Freedom Fest in downtown Raleigh for a day filled with special exhibits and musical performances—all free. Of course, there will be food trucks too. The Come Hear NC Music Office is proud to have helped program the musical lineup. Tift Merritt and Rissi Palmer will headline, with Nest of Singing Birds, the 82nd Air-Borne All-American Brass Quintet, the Wake & District Raleigh Pipe Band, and the NC Governor’s School Choir. The poet Zack Zachary will also entertain the crowd.
To better acquaint folks with the event’s headliners, we interviewed Tift Merritt and Rissi Palmer. They discussed their personal and professional relationship, what they are looking forward to when they perform on July 4, and what freedom and liberty mean to them. Sometimes their answers chime, and sometimes they diverge, but the two are united by an abiding camaraderie, a commitment to music as community building, and the desire to encourage both the practice of freedom and connection across differences.
Tift Merritt and Rissi Palmer’s spirit of collaboration runs deep. Not only are they frequent music partners, but also the two have bonded as friends, thinkers, advocates, and mothers. Merritt says she considers Palmer both a dear friend and one of her heroes:
“She is one of the people out there doing heavy lifting, the historical work, the meaning-making, and making the world a better place. She is one of the musicians, mothers, and activist goddesses I look up to the most. But most of all, she is my very dear friend. I can call her up and say any old thing and before I know it, we will just be laughing so hard. I’m so grateful to be here on earth when she is.”
Palmer says much the same about her relationship with Merritt: on their first meeting, her previous admiration of Merritt’s music was deepened by the solidarity she felt when she saw Merritt’s daughter running around the dressing room before a show. A mother herself juggling the often-contradictory demands of work and life, Palmer could relate. And as they played shows together and deepened their professional relationship, Palmer’s respect for Merritt’s “energy, sense of humor, and passion for justice” grew. When we asked her what she looked forward to most about playing on the Fourth, she joked: “Any opportunity to play and sing with my friend is reason enough to put on pants.”
When the topic turned to what independence means to them, Merritt and Palmer’s visions complement one another. For Merritt, the promise of America is true equality: “No one should be able to take your voice from you, to silence or drown out other voices with money or power. Every voice counts and every voice should sing loud.” Palmer’s answer is a more personal slant, detailing her constant struggle to be heard: “It’s a responsibility and privilege to be able to sustain a self-funded and motivated career for more than 16 years. I’ve had to fight for everything I have, which is why it means so much to me.”
For both, the role of the artist is to model and encourage the practice of freedom for others. Palmer quotes James Baldwin: “The role of the artist is the same as the role of the lover. If I love, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” Merritt says, “Storytelling is always a hopeful act—an attempt at connection. Harmony is always an admirable aspiration. Music, at its heart, is about community, the song we all have inside, the highest common denominator rather than the lowest. Creative responses to now—to what it is like to be a messy, inefficient human being in this moment—seem incredibly important to remind us how little separates us and how much we all need each other.” Both Palmer and Merritt see music as more than a means of escape: when done right, it can foster emotional and social growth.
With headliners as thoughtful, talented, and simpatico as Tift Merritt and Rissi Palmer, Capitol 250’s musical festivities are bound to be a delight. One might even say the music is liable to embody the best of America’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.