Merissa Wilson
Born at the base of the Teton Mountains, Merissa’s roots run deep in the land that reaches to her homesteading ancestors 5 generations back. She carries this tradition forward and writes songs that express the love she has for this unique mountain valley and the adventures it brings to her life.
Music was a major part of Merissa’s upbringing, playing the piano and singing at every opportunity. She recalls winter nights spent singing any song she could think of as she walked up and down the aisles of the barn to keep warm while she awaited lambing sheep to give birth. She also composed her own song a capella one summer while spending hours changing irrigation dams in the fields where her family pastured their sheep. The words and music for that song have long since been forgotten, but they were a fore shadow of things to come.
In addition to music, Merissa was cultivating a connection to the land in her younger years. Annual packtrips into the mountains with her family, summers at Teton Science School, counting eagles on the South Fork, climbing the Grand Teton at age 17 with her father, and her own special spot up Teton Canyon all helped her realize what an exceptional place she grew up in.
At college Merissa chose to study Conservation Biology, recognizing the importance of preserving places like those she came from. In her final semester in school, she decided to take a guitar class, not knowing how passionate this hobby would soon become for her. For several years she was content to play cover songs, but leave it to a break up to push the emotions right out of her heart and into the lyrics and music of her first hit, I Was Happy. Her second song, Come Home, soon followed, describing a love affair that she keeps coming back to, that her audience learns in the end is her love for the Teton mountains and not the man they assume at the beginning. With time, many other songs followed, and she rarely has an experience anymore that she doesn’t think, “That would make a good song.”
Compared to musical icons such as Joan Baez and Nancy Griffith, and with major influences including Patty Griffin, Dar Williams, and Martha Scanlan, Merissa’s songs cover a broad range of genres such as folk, blue-grass, rock, and sometimes even a little spoken word. Manager Matt Lucia uses one word to describe her music, “Connected. Whether to a place, a person, or an experience, Merissa gives everyone the feeling of connection through her writing that they can’t help but feel connected to these things themselves.”
Catch her solo for soul-soothing tunes or performing lively mountain melodies with other local musicians and family in the heart of the Tetons. "I hope other people can find strength, empathy, motivation, and inspiration in my songs," a quote from Merissa in Teton Valley Magazine, Leaving These Hills, Summer 2008 by Lauren M. Whaley.
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