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U.S. Catholic review - The Geography of Light
September 22nd, 2008
by Heidi Schlumpf
Back when I used to sort
my CDs into categories (back when I still bought CDs), one section was devoted
to inspirational female artists whose lyrics spoke to my life’s experiences.
Too bad I didn’t know about Carrie Newcomer back then. She would have fit in
perfectly with the Indigo Girls, Alanis Morissette, and Dar Williams.
Newcomer has been
performing since the 1980s (for years as part of the folk group Stone Soup) and
has released 11 solo albums since 1991, most recently The Geography of Light (Rounder, 2008).
Though her rich alto voice and folk/country sound (accented by an Appalachian
fiddle and classical cello) appeal, it is her thoughtful lyrics that keep me
pressing repeat on my mp3 player.
Newcomer’s Quaker faith
informs many of her songs, but hers is a subtle, progressive spirituality that
hardly fits today’s evangelical “Christian” genre. Instead she explores the
gray, the spaces between darkness and the light of the title.
A native Midwesterner who
lives in rural southern Indiana, Newcomer is not afraid of mystery and finds
the sacred in the everyday—from a guy at the 7-Eleven to lumpy rocks that
reveal a mysterious quartz center. “All these things that we call familiar/are
just miracles clothed in the commonplace,” she sings in “Geodes.” A convert to
a faith that stresses silence, she writes in “Throw Me a Line” about listening
for the voice of God: “But there is a still quiet voice/and it sounds a little
like mine/saying, ‘You’re right where you should be/It’s just going to take
time.’”
Newcomer is donating 10
percent of the album’s proceeds to the American Friends Service Committee, the
Quaker organization that works for peace and justice. She gives workshops on
vocation and art and has collaborated with spiritual writer Parker J. Palmer
for several of the CD’s songs. I may be a latecomer to Newcomer, but she has
joined my pantheon of inspirational women of song.