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Authors' Favorite Folk Singer
March 12th, 2008
by by Lynn Garrett, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly,
What musical taste do authors Parker Palmer (The Courage to Teach), Phillip Gulley (Front Porch Tales), Jim Wallis (God's Politics), Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christian) and Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) have in common? They're all fans of Quaker singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, who played to a sold-out crowd at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music this past Sunday as part of the tour for her new CD, The Geography of Light (Rounder Records). Like these authors, Newcomer's work is infused with her faith, and it speaks above the clamor of the religious right to ask what it should mean to be a Christian in today's world. Newcomer has toured with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and her song "I Should Have Known Better" was recorded by Nickel Creek on their Grammy-winning album This Side. Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak, inspired one of the new songs ("The Clean Edge of Change") and he cowrote another of the CD's tunes ("Two Toasts") with Newcomer. Quaker pastor and fellow Hoosier Gulley wrote the liner notes. Ten percent of the CD sales proceeds from the tour will go to support the American Friends Service Committee.