Merchant To Perform Live For Oxygen

NEW YORK (AP) - Natalie Merchant will be subject of a televised concert on the Oxygen network next Friday (Dec. 21). "Up Close And Personal With Natalie Merchant" will air at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and will be simultaneously streamed through Oxygen's Web site.

The concert, Merchant's first televised performance in two years, will be taped Tuesday in New York and coincides with Oxygen's debut on Time Warner Cable of New York City. The network is also inviting fans to submit questions at its Web site for Merchant to answer during the show.

The former 10,000 Maniacs lead singer is winding down her tour in support of her latest album, "Motherland" (Elektra). The run touches down tonight (Dec. 14) at the Aire Crown Theater in Chicago, tomorrow at St. Louis' Pageant, and will come to a close on Wednesday at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J., a make-up date for a show postponed last month due to illness.

Merchant is also scheduled to appear Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live" and Thursday on NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." A Jan. 26 appearance on PBS' "Austin City Limits" is also in the offing. The episode was taped earlier this month when Merchant and her group "played an hour-long set before a very kind live audience" according to a letter to fans on the artist's official Web site.

"Motherland" debuted at No. 30 on The Billboard 200 earlier this month. The album's lone single so far, "Just Can't Last," peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 chart.