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Music to Feed Your Heart and Soul
September 16th, 2008
by Linda Bieze
Recording
artist Carrie Newcomer was not a familiar name to me, but when I learned that
she would be performing in concert at the EEWC biennial conference, A Place at
the Table, this June, I wanted to learn more about her, so I checked out
several of her CDs, all of which she has recorded on Rounder Records.
Her
musical styles range adeptly from rock, to folk, country, blues, and
gospel. Her rich voice holds echoes of Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, and
Alison Krauss. A gifted poet, Newcomer writes lyrics that can tell
stories or share feelings. Her Quaker beliefs are evident in many of her words,
but she doesn't preach at you. And each album features great instrumental
musicians—including Newcomer herself on acoustic guitar, Keith Skooglund on
electric guitar, Jeff Hedback on electric bass, and Lance Tolbert on Hammond B3
organ.
Betty's Diner
Betty's Diner (2004) can serve as a
great introduction to Newcomer's work for any new listener. It offers a
menu of the best of Newcomer's songs from her second solo album, An Angel at My
Shoulder (1994), to numbers newly released on this album, including the title
song, a collection of vignettes about the regulars at a small-town diner.
Another new cut on this album is the rocking “Bowling Baby,” which tells about
a “bowling alley queen” from the point of view of the guy who rents the bowling
shoes and has a crush on her.
Four of
the fifteen cuts on Betty's Diner
come from her 2000 album, The Age of
Possibility. I was happy to have a second chance to hear these songs
because either the engineering of Possibility
is below-par or my copy of that CD was poorly manufactured, making the lyrics
on the entire album hard to understand. The songs sound great musically,
but to me, words are half the song.
Regulars and Refugees
Her 2005 album, Regulars and Refugees,
continues what Newcomer began with her song “Betty's Diner.” Miranda, the
waitress introduced in that song, listens sympathetically to the story of each
regular or refugee who finds comfort at the diner. The liner notes add
narrative details to flesh out the person sketched in the words of each
song. But even without the notes, the songs are full of wisdom. For
instance, “Be True,” with some great electric guitar licks, tells about the
promises and faithfulness of true love. Only when you read the liner
notes, do you learn that the song is about Olivia, who remained true to her
partner Paula and lost her position as pastor of a local church.
I love all
the stories of the people who frequent Betty's Diner. Some are poignant,
like “Alice and Roy,” a couple in their 90s who are still in love, and others
are amusing as well as touching, like Bob the Dog's song “Arthur B and Me”
about his best friend, Arthur. The album closes with a remix of “Betty's
Diner,” whose chorus shows what a sacred and sacramental place the diner truly
is:
Here we are all in one place, the wants and wounds of the
human race
Despair and hope sit face to face when you come in from the cold.
Let her fill your cup with something kind, eggs and toast like bread and wine.
She's heard it all so she don't mind.
The Geography of Light
Newcomer's latest
album, The Geography of Light, which
releases on February 12, doesn't have the narrative unity or the musical
variety of Regulars and Refugees, but each song is full of poetry and spiritual
insights. Here's an evocative image from the cut “Geodes,” a song about
finding wonder in the commonplace that was inspired by the plain rocks with
crystal centers that are common in southern
All the things that we call familiar
Are just miracles clothed in the commonplace . . .
God walks around in muddy boots, sometime rags, and that's the truth.
Piano,
viola, and cello accompany Newcomer's vocal and guitar on this song, expanding
the musical texture of her earlier recordings.
Newcomer
and her friend, author Phil Gulley (who will also be speaking at the EEWC
conference in June), collaborated on the lyrics to “Two Toasts”—in which the
two wordsmiths marvel at the words that live for them and at “what lives
between the words.”
Returning
to the style of Regulars and Refugees,
“Lazarus” tells the story of Jesus' friend from Lazarus' viewpoint. Reflecting
on his experience of death and resurrection, Lazarus feels out of place in the
world of the living and abandoned by the resurrected Jesus. The
accompaniment of piano and strings gives it the feel of chamber music.
“The Clean
Edge of Change” was inspired, writes Newcomer in her on-line notes to the
lyrics, by Quaker theologian Parker J. Palmer's book Let Your Life Speak.
Palmer's book tells of his journey to emotional wholeness, and similarly
Newcomer's lyrics evoke rising above emotional difficulties to “stand
breathless on the clean edge of change.”
“A Mean
Kind of Justice” makes me think of our nation's wars in
The lyrics
of some of the songs on The Geography of
Light are more impressionistic than logical, but Newcomer's rich voice, her
deft guitar-playing, and the beautiful arrangements make them pleasant to hear,
and certain words stand out, creating images in the hearer's mind. It's
an album that bears listening to again and again.
Beginning
January 31, Carrie Newcomer is on a national tour to promote The Geography of
Light. She will donate ten percent of the profits from tour sales of the
album to the American Friends Service Committee. You can visit her website at www.carrienewcomer.com
to find out whether her tour will take her to your area, as well as to read the
lyrics to the songs on all her albums and to sample cuts from Geography.
I hope you will all get to know Carrie Newcomer through her website, her music,
and her concert this June at
Reviewer
Linda Bieze lives in