Natalie Merchant has been absent from 10,000 Maniacs for longer than she was a member.
But when the band takes the stage at Rialto Theatre next Thursday, Oct. 11, it will seem like she never left.
In spirit, at least.
“She’s beloved; she’s a treasured artist,” said Mary Ramsey, the 54-year-old classically trained violist-violinist-turned-lead-singer who took Merchant’s place explained about her uncanny similarity to her predecessor. “I honestly try to do a good interpretation of the music she wrote.”
The two women don’t really look alike so much as sound alike; both have a soulful alto that can wring every emotion from the lyrics of Merchant-penned songs about poets and dreamers, lovers and losers. But more than that, Ramsey inhabits a certain demeanor, a subtle, shy-girl swagger that endeared Merchant to her legion of fans who followed the band from its 1981 beginnings through Merchant’s 1993 departure to pursue a solo career.
Ramsey, who has clocked time with orchestras in California and her hometown of Buffalo, New York, joined the band a few years before Merchant left. Her John & Mary duo with Maniacs founding guitarist John Lombardo opened for the band and then she and Lombardo would join them on stage; she sang backing vocals and played violin and viola.
When Merchant left, the band tapped Ramsey to take her place.
“For me, I like the introverted quality of just playing the instrument. … And when you perform as a singer ... you’re connecting with another part, which is so important,” she said from home in Buffalo late last week. “It’s fulfilling in a lot of ways. It’s a different kind of lifestyle.”
The transition, she recalled, was fairly seamless in large part because she had established a relationship with the band.
“We have something that’s pretty consistent and pretty powerful, I think,” she said.
The Ramsey-led Maniacs have recorded four studio albums and a pair of EPs since 1997’s “Love Among the Ruins,” the band’s first post-Merchant album. While none have racked up the sales of the Merchant-led catalogue, including the band’s 1987 double-platinum (2 million-plus sales) breakthrough “In My Tribe,” the Ramsey-fronted Maniacs sold some 200,000 copies of that first album and their cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” landed at No. 25 on Billboard.
The band continues to record — the last studio album was 2015’s “Twice Told Tales,” a collection of English folk songs; and they released an EP, “For Crying Out Loud,” in 2016.
Ramsey said their live shows pull from the classic Maniacs catalogue — “What’s the Matter Here,” “Trouble Me,” “These Are the Days,” “Hey Jack Kerouac,” “My Sister Rose” — as well as their newer albums.
“It’s kind of a nice mix of the catalogue of the 10,000 Maniacs,” she said.
And if you find yourself reminiscing about Natalie Merchant when you see Ramsey on the Rialto stage, she’s OK with that.
“Part of it, I think, comes from the fact that we are about the same age,” said Ramsey, 54. “We grew up in the same area. Of course being around the musicians, being around the guys in the band, there’s that chemistry. But I also felt aware of her presence and her special qualities.”
The Tucson concert is the first of three Arizona shows including Flagstaff on Friday, Oct. 12, and Tempe on Saturday, Oct. 13.
