Tift Merritt Announces New Album Sugar

Read the Variety Exclusive HERE

Listen to New Single "Finest Feelings" HERE

March 27, 2026 : Beloved Grammy-nominated singer-songwriterTift Merritt has announced Sugar, her first album in nearly a decade, due out June 26 via One Riot. The album marks a defining new chapter for the North Carolina-bred artist long regarded as one of Americana's most influential voices.

Merritt stepped largely out of the spotlight following her 2017 albumStitch of the World, turning her focus toward raising her daughter, serving as a Practitioner-in-Residence at Duke University, helping shape the hotel reinvention of The Gables in Raleigh, NC, and advocating for musician rights through the Artist Rights Alliance. That time away - lived fully and on her own terms - quietly expanded her sense of purpose, laying the foundation for the songs that would become Sugar.

A gorgeously unguarded collection rooted in Merritt's radiant blend of country-soul, Sugarwas written across eight years of lived experience and reveals an artist returning with renewed clarity and emotional depth. Moving fluidly between the intimate and the expansive, the album finds Merritt celebrating fleeting moments of grace while grounding her songs in the realities of everyday life.

With the announcement today, Merritt shares the album's lead single, "Finest Feelings," a raw and magnetic introduction to the record's open-hearted spirit. "There's nothing so fine as the urgency of love-someone who shakes you up and reminds you how much you have inside," she says. "This song just spilled out, full of hope and fear and possibility and also the longing to be fully known." Listen to "Finest Feelings" (out now) HERE .

Merritt has also unveiled a BTS video from the making of the album today, featuring the new single. Watch HERE .

"Before I made this record I was looking at the world and thinking, 'I don't know what to do except try to put some love out there.' And for me, singing is the most honest, immediate way to offer love," says Merritt. "My work has always been about trying to understand what it means to be human at that point in time; I believe it's my responsibility as an artist to have a creative response to the current moment. But that response has to make room for the personal and the joyful too-we can't face everything with doom and gloom alone."

Now more than two decades into her career, Merritt remains a singular voice in American music, returning with a record rooted in hard-won perspective, creative renewal, and the sustaining power of honesty and love.

Recorded at Nashville's Gold Pacific Studios and tracked live, Sugar captures a deliberate spontaneity that underscores the emotional immediacy of Merritt's performances. Produced by Lawrence Rothman, she's joined by a wide-ranging group of collaborators, including guitarist Audley Freed (Alison Krauss, Sheryl Crow), multi-instrumentalist Robert Ellis (PJ Harvey, Faye Webster), Dr. Dog's Eric Slick, Midlake's McKenzie Smith, and Memphis-based arranger Art Edmaiston.

"Producing Sugar felt like stepping into a rare, hard-earned moment of creative focus," says Rothman. "There was patience in the room, but also a quiet urgency-like everyone knew this music had been living with her for years. Many of the takes were first takes, Tift on the floor cutting with the band. It felt less like making an album and more like documenting an artist re-entering her own story."

"Sugar is about the surprising sweetness of being unequipped for showing up every day but trying anyway," Merritt says. "It relishes pleasure, finds love and loses it, and laughs about how your ideas about your life get shaken out of your hands for the better. It's a love song to calling it like you see it-it seeks kindness."

Merritt recently sat down with Variety's Chris Willman for the first in-depth interview ahead of the new album. You can read the exclusive HERE .

Even in its most vulnerable moments, Sugar radiates the vitality of its creation. Merritt's fully embodied performances offer an open invitation to connection at a time when it feels increasingly rare. "When people hear this album, I hope they feel like I shared with them as generously as I could," she says. "These days, when it feels harder and harder to connect with something real, I'm doubling down on that realness."

Hailed by The New Yorker as "the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul," Merritt first broke through with her 2004 album Tambourine, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. Her songwriting has drawn comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris, and she has collaborated with artists including Jason Isbell and Iron & Wine.

In addition to the album, Merritt is also a part of the revisioning of The Gables, a 18-room hotel, bar and gathering space in Raleigh, NC, set to open this July. For more information, please visit https://www.thegablesraleigh.com/ .

Merritt is confirmed to play Evanston Folk Festival in September, with additional dates to be announced. You can pre-orderSugar (out June 26) HERE and visit https://www.tiftmerritt.com/ for more information and upcoming tour dates.

Press Contacts:

Allison Elbl (Shore Fire) - [email protected]

Taylor Perry (Shore Fire) - [email protected]