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Music review: Carrie Newcomer's 'Before & After' - United Church of Christ News
April 28th, 2010
by Brian Q. Newcomb
Carrie Newcomer (Rounder)
Carrie Newcomer is one of those respected names among the singer/songwriter, folk music community, mentioned alongside Kate Campbell, David Wilcox, Pierce Pettis, Beth Neilson Chapman and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
After her first solo album, "Dreams & Visions" (1991), Newcomer toured opening for Alison Krauss & Union Station, and her song "I Should've Known Better" was covered by Nickel Creek on their Grammy-winning album, "This Side" (2003). She collaborated with author Parker J. Palmer on the song "Two Toasts" and then worked with other Quaker writers for the PBS Special "Festival of Friends: An Offering of 4 Quaker Voices," in 2007.
Such is Newcomer's appeal and influence that she is described by Barbara Kingsolver, author of "The Poisonwood Bible" among other great works, as "much more than a musician. She's a poet, storyteller, snake charmer, good neighbor, friend and love, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace."
With a testimonial like that, you may not need to hear more, but since she's hardly a household name, I'll add a few graphs of my own about her latest, fine musical recording.
With this rich collection of story songs, Newcomer offers gentle but stirring witness to the holiness at the center of life's relational connections.
"There are stories," she writes in "Ghost Train," "that we were told to keep us in our place. There are stories that we made up ourselves to save a little face. There are the ones that made us crazy and the ones that kept us sane. Keep on walking if the stories all start to sound the same." Borrowing a title from her 2009 work with author Jill Bolte Taylor, Newcomer specializes in the kind that are "Transforming Stories."
And these story songs of transformation make consistent use of Jewish and Christian scriptures. In "Before & After" she leans on the Genesis story of Cain and Abel, and the kinds of events that leave us longing for forgiveness and understanding, "the mercies received and the mark upon the brow." In "Coy Dogs" she longs for wholeness and sight even though we look through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13), while "Do No Harm" is a Quaker commitment to peaceful non-violence that echoes the vision of Isaiah 2's beating of swords into plowshares.
In "If Not Now" she nudges us gently toward activism, while "Stones in the River" and "A Small Flashlight" remind us that that small actions, small gifts, "one step at a time," are what is required to make a difference in this world of ours. In this world of ours, she declares, "the greatest revolution is a simple change of heart," while in "Wish I May, Wish I Might" she celebrates the modest works of small town life.
Newcomer has a solid singing voice, and delivers her songs in subtle arrangements that leave room for the lyrics to resonate across the consciousness of the listener. It's a quiet, often somber project, lightened by her artful, poetic sensibilities, and the compassion they express. "Before & After" is a mature effort, one with many gifts that unfold in repeated hearing.