Natalie Merchant Biography

Musician and performer Natalie Merchant was born in 1963 in Jamestown, New York.  Natalie grew up with music in the house; her Italian grandfather played guitar and mandolin and her mother encouraged the Merchant children to study music. Visits to the symphony and concerts filled Natalie’s childhood. While still a teenager, Natalie Merchant began singing for Still Life, the band which would eventually go on to become 10,000 Maniacs.

The band released a series of independent albums before signing with a major label in 1985. My Tribe, in 1987, shot to the top of the charts, and Our Time in Eden (1992) fared equally well. Natalie Merchant left 10,000 Maniacs in 1994 and released Tigerlily, her solo debut, in 1995. On the strength of the hit single “Carnival,” the album nearly reached the Top Ten.  Additional albums followed: Ophelia (1998), Motherland (2001), The House Carpenter’s Daughter (2003), Retrospective (2005), Leave Your Sleep (2010), Natalie Merchant (2015), and Paradise Is There: The new Tigerlily Recordings (2015.)

Natalie Merchant continues to record, tour and perform, and remains a prominent social activist for a number of causes important to her, including the homeless, animal rights, and domestic violence. Her most recent album, Butterfly, arrived in 2017.