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Friday, May 21, 2010
The Daily Record Review
Carrie Rodriguez honors family, roots on new album
May 14, 2010 by thedailyrecord
(Above: Carrie Rodriguez graces the Austin City Limits stage.)
By Joel Francis
The Daily Record
Over the years, Carrie Rodriguez closed her shows with “Punalda Trapera,” a Spanish-language number frequently performed by her great aunt, Eva Garza. Inevitably, fans asked which album it was on. The catch: it wasn’t – until now.
“Love and Circumstance,” Rodriguez third album, pays tributes to her family, inspirations and some contemporaries.
“Because of the response from fans, I decided to record these songs the way our band does them,” Rodriguez said.
Producer Lee Townsend helped Rodriguez pick the dozen covers, including well-known songs by Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, and surprising numbers by M. Ward and Little Village. Townsend was also able to convince Buddy Miller to take time from his tour with Robert Plant and Allison Krauss to contribute to the cover of his song “Wide River to Cross.”
“I’m a huge Buddy Miller fan. He’s one of the people I’ve always wanted to work with,” Rodriguez said. “Fortunately, he had a portable recording rig with him on the road, so he was able to record his vocal tracks from his hotel room on the road. It was very sweet of him.”
Rodriguez discovered “Punalda Trapera” while going through a stack of her grandmother’s records. The song was immediately added to her live act.
“Eva died in the late ‘40s, so I never got to meet her,” Rodriguez said. “She’s always been a family legend. When I was younger, my grandma would talk about her famous sister who was in films and made records and was on the radio. I always thought she was exaggerating until I got older.”
Even more personal is “When I Heard Gypsy Davy Sing,” a song by David Rodriguez that only existed as an e-mail file until his daughter recorded it. The elder Rodriguez came up in the Houston folk scene of the late ‘70s and moved to Holland when Carrie Rodriguez was 16.
“The song is about a singer in a bar looking back on what he’s done with his life and what he’s left behind,” Rodriguez said. “It was pretty heavy for me to sing as his daughter, but it was very therapeutic. Signing it made me feel closer to him.”
Longtime fans may remember the songs Rodriguez cut with Chip Taylor – writer of the song “Wild Thing” – as the violin player in his band. Her fiddle was largely absent on her last album, but has returned to prominence on “Love and Circumstance.”
“I let the song dictate what instrument I play,” Rodriguez said. “Part of why there wasn’t as much fiddle on the last record is that I couldn’t find a way to fit it in. The songs didn’t seem to need or want it.”
Writing songs on the guitar instead of the fiddle not only came more naturally to Rodriguez, but changed the dynamics of her songs.
“These days I end up writing on the guitar and can’t find a way to fit the fiddle in,” Rodriguez said. “There’s still plenty of fiddle in the live show, though.”
Two years ago, Rodriguez toured in Austin, Texas singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo’s band. Escovedo has been trying to convince Rodriguez to shift her alt-country roots and record a rock album.
“Al has good advice. I always have to consider his suggestions,” Rodriguez said. “Part of why I made this covers album was to take a step back and look at what kind of songs inspired me, and what kind of songs I want to write. Hopefully it’s given me some good inspiration for the next batch of songs I write.”
Keep reading:
Review: Robert Plant and Allison Krauss
Catching up with the Hot Club of Cowtown
Elvis Costello – “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane”
By Joel Francis
The Daily Record
Over the years, Carrie Rodriguez closed her shows with “Punalda Trapera,” a Spanish-language number frequently performed by her great aunt, Eva Garza. Inevitably, fans asked which album it was on. The catch: it wasn’t – until now.
“Love and Circumstance,” Rodriguez third album, pays tributes to her family, inspirations and some contemporaries.
“Because of the response from fans, I decided to record these songs the way our band does them,” Rodriguez said.
Producer Lee Townsend helped Rodriguez pick the dozen covers, including well-known songs by Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, and surprising numbers by M. Ward and Little Village. Townsend was also able to convince Buddy Miller to take time from his tour with Robert Plant and Allison Krauss to contribute to the cover of his song “Wide River to Cross.”
“I’m a huge Buddy Miller fan. He’s one of the people I’ve always wanted to work with,” Rodriguez said. “Fortunately, he had a portable recording rig with him on the road, so he was able to record his vocal tracks from his hotel room on the road. It was very sweet of him.”
Carrie Rodriguez performs with Jim Lauderdale and Tim Easton on Sunday at Knuckleheads.
“Eva died in the late ‘40s, so I never got to meet her,” Rodriguez said. “She’s always been a family legend. When I was younger, my grandma would talk about her famous sister who was in films and made records and was on the radio. I always thought she was exaggerating until I got older.”
Even more personal is “When I Heard Gypsy Davy Sing,” a song by David Rodriguez that only existed as an e-mail file until his daughter recorded it. The elder Rodriguez came up in the Houston folk scene of the late ‘70s and moved to Holland when Carrie Rodriguez was 16.
“The song is about a singer in a bar looking back on what he’s done with his life and what he’s left behind,” Rodriguez said. “It was pretty heavy for me to sing as his daughter, but it was very therapeutic. Signing it made me feel closer to him.”
Longtime fans may remember the songs Rodriguez cut with Chip Taylor – writer of the song “Wild Thing” – as the violin player in his band. Her fiddle was largely absent on her last album, but has returned to prominence on “Love and Circumstance.”
“I let the song dictate what instrument I play,” Rodriguez said. “Part of why there wasn’t as much fiddle on the last record is that I couldn’t find a way to fit it in. The songs didn’t seem to need or want it.”
Writing songs on the guitar instead of the fiddle not only came more naturally to Rodriguez, but changed the dynamics of her songs.“These days I end up writing on the guitar and can’t find a way to fit the fiddle in,” Rodriguez said. “There’s still plenty of fiddle in the live show, though.”
Two years ago, Rodriguez toured in Austin, Texas singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo’s band. Escovedo has been trying to convince Rodriguez to shift her alt-country roots and record a rock album.
“Al has good advice. I always have to consider his suggestions,” Rodriguez said. “Part of why I made this covers album was to take a step back and look at what kind of songs inspired me, and what kind of songs I want to write. Hopefully it’s given me some good inspiration for the next batch of songs I write.”
Keep reading:
Review: Robert Plant and Allison Krauss
Catching up with the Hot Club of Cowtown
Elvis Costello – “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane”
More Carrie Reivews
Carrie Rodriguez - Love and Circumstance
Send "Carrie Rodriguez " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pastemagazine |
| Trekking on others’ musical property is a risky maneuver. Carrie Rodriguez thinks otherwise. On her third solo release the Texan singer-songwriter/fiddler boldly takes on timeless folk-country grit—the likes of the Williams’ (Hank Jr. and Lucinda), Merle Haggard (“Today I Started Loving You Again”) and Townes Van Zandt (“Rex’s Blues”)— with a suave back-country elegance. Each track sees small-batch wisdom intertwine with Rodriguez’ earthy vocals that slather themselves, oftentimes too gently, over simple acoustic plucking. The arrangements, while occasionally tedious, still impress with their affable charm....full text |
| Popdose |
| I’ve really pretty much had it with covers records — those of you who follow me on Twitter may have recently experienced my raging disdain for Marc Cohn’s upcoming exercise in laziness — but even I have to admit that not all of them are created equal, and very, very few of them boast pedigrees as stellar as Carrie Rodriguez’s Love and Circumstance. Rodriguez herself is no slouch, and I happen to think she actually excels when she’s interpreting others’ material — and here, she’s not only joined by an ace band that includes Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz, but she cherry-picks from some spectacular songbooks, including John Hiatt (the Little Village cut “Big Love”), Lucinda Williams (“Steal Your Love”), and Townes Van Zandt (“Rex’s Blues”). The result is a collection that, while it certainly doesn’t break any artistic ground, does a wonderful job of paying tribute to some of roots rock’s leading lights. The band is marvelous, as you’d expect, and Rodriguez’s vocals have the sweetness and fine texture of dark honey. In fact, she damn near makes these songs her own; if you aren’t familiar with the originals, you’d never suspect their disparate origins, and even if you loved these songs the first time around, you’ll be hard-pressed to deny that Rodriguez does right by them. Looking at the album artwork, you might be tempted to dismiss her as purely a pretty face, but don’t be fooled — the ever-so-slightly burred edges of her voice hint at a spiritual depth beyond her 32 years, and musically, Love and Circumstance has more to offer than your typical covers project. Just listen to the tangled knots of guitar that unspool in “Punalada Trapera,” and you’ll understand that this is a labor of love, not a lazy holding pattern between “real” albums...full text |
| Twangville |
| Lots of people have covered the Hank classics. The Carrie Rodriguez version of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, on her latest record Love and Circumstance, ranks right up there with the best of them. With Carrie on mandolin and Bill Frisell on guitar, there’s a richness to the instrumental that complements Carrie’s vocals and puts a clear stamp on the song as a new arrangement while maintaining the sadness of the original. And her version of the Merle Haggard composition I Started Loving You Again, well, Merle, listen and weep. As you might have guessed by now, Love and Circumstance is a covers album. The record starts off on a high note with her version of the Little Village classic, Big Love. Along with the M.Ward tune, Eyes On the Prize, these two cuts have the potential for a lot of radio airplay. If anyone listens to radio anymore…. There are also good versions of Lucinda Williams’ Steal Your Love and the Townes Van Zandt classic, Rex’s Blues. Just like her willingness to go out on the road as a fiddle player for Alejandro Escovado after having a couple of successful records on her own, the choice and success of the variety of covers points to Carrie being very much her own compass. Where this album really hits its stride, though, is in the slower, sadder songs that dominate the selection list. Take the Richard Thompson piece, Waltzing’s For Dreamers, where “waltzing’s for dreamers and losers in love”. Listening to the song it just slowly crawls into your soul with a melancholy spirit that takes control. There’s the aforementioned I Started Loving You Again. And the album finishes with La Punalada Trapera that, even without understanding Spanish, tells a tale of heartbreak so big words can barely convey its dimension....full text |
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Pop Matters Review of Love and Circumstance
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FeedsCarrie Rodriguez: Love and Circumstance
It’s a funny time for Carrie Rodriguez to release an all-covers album. After all, she has only recently emerged as a singer-songwriter ready to ascend the ranks, with two well-received solo records, 2006’s Seven Angels on a Bicycle and 2008’s She Ain’t Me. Those albums themselves came after a series of albums and tours with Chip Taylor, a songwriter of legend and fortune for having written both “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning”. Rodriguez’s career was, for better or worse, entwined with Taylor for the better part of the decade, but she’s a singer and instrumentalist who certainly deserves her own recognition. And while Taylor’s songs continued to fill Seven Angels, it was encouraging to see Rodriguez writing more of her own material for She Ain’t Me, especially as it’s a stronger set of songs.
Given this momentum, her third album, Love and Circumstance, feels like a sidestep. Fortunately, it’s also a pretty terrific listen. In choosing a set of love songs to cover, Rodriguez doesn’t mess around with lesser writers, mining gems from all-time greats like Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, and others. The writers are no-brainer selections, but Rodriguez demonstrates great taste with the individual song choices, avoiding, for the most part, obvious or worn-out chestnuts.
The other success here is how assured Rodriguez has grown as a vocalist, and these uniformly great songs are fitting showcases for her singing, which is another part of her evolution. She’s gone from a fiddle player who sings to a full-blown vocal interpreter who occasionally picks up the fiddle, which appears very sparingly on the new album. And she is a refreshingly honest singer, decidely unflashy in her warm, direct alto—none of the baby-bird coos, old-hag warbles, or precious-me little-girl affectations so common in female Americana artists these days. Instead, she can bring subtlety and power with equal, winning effect.
Rodriguez’s fiddle shows up just twice, and she plays electric mandolin a few more times, but this is her vocal breakthrough. It helps to have not only unimpeachable material like these songs, but also a crack band and some ace guests, like Aoife O’Donovan (from the chamber-grass band Crooked Still) on harmony vocals and the great Greg Leisz on pedal steel. For O’Donovan’s part, she and Rodriguez sound terrific melting their voices together, particularly on Lucinda’s “Steal Your Love”, a real highlight, and “When I Heard Gypsy Davy Sing”, a song written by Carrie’s father, David. It’s a lovely tribute to her dad, beautifully arranged, as Leisz’s steel and Hal Holzen’s guitars wash and tumble over Eric Platz’s brushed snare.
Other highlights include lead single “Big Love”, shimmering Americana written by the John Hiatt/Nick Lowe/Ry Cooder tandem, Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Wide River to Cross”, featuring Buddy himself with his trademark grizzled harmonies, and Richard Thompson’s “Waltzing’s For Dreamers”, showcasing Rodriguez’s twangiest vocals and her own breezy fiddle break. Love and Circumstance isn’t likely to raise Carrie’s overall stature, given the sheer glut of rootsy cover albums that see release every year, but with this record’s stately production (Lee Townsend at the knobs), song selection, and Carrie’s own poised vocals, it’s a highly listenable affair that will serve admirably to tide us over until next time.
Given this momentum, her third album, Love and Circumstance, feels like a sidestep. Fortunately, it’s also a pretty terrific listen. In choosing a set of love songs to cover, Rodriguez doesn’t mess around with lesser writers, mining gems from all-time greats like Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, and others. The writers are no-brainer selections, but Rodriguez demonstrates great taste with the individual song choices, avoiding, for the most part, obvious or worn-out chestnuts.
The other success here is how assured Rodriguez has grown as a vocalist, and these uniformly great songs are fitting showcases for her singing, which is another part of her evolution. She’s gone from a fiddle player who sings to a full-blown vocal interpreter who occasionally picks up the fiddle, which appears very sparingly on the new album. And she is a refreshingly honest singer, decidely unflashy in her warm, direct alto—none of the baby-bird coos, old-hag warbles, or precious-me little-girl affectations so common in female Americana artists these days. Instead, she can bring subtlety and power with equal, winning effect.
Rodriguez’s fiddle shows up just twice, and she plays electric mandolin a few more times, but this is her vocal breakthrough. It helps to have not only unimpeachable material like these songs, but also a crack band and some ace guests, like Aoife O’Donovan (from the chamber-grass band Crooked Still) on harmony vocals and the great Greg Leisz on pedal steel. For O’Donovan’s part, she and Rodriguez sound terrific melting their voices together, particularly on Lucinda’s “Steal Your Love”, a real highlight, and “When I Heard Gypsy Davy Sing”, a song written by Carrie’s father, David. It’s a lovely tribute to her dad, beautifully arranged, as Leisz’s steel and Hal Holzen’s guitars wash and tumble over Eric Platz’s brushed snare.
Other highlights include lead single “Big Love”, shimmering Americana written by the John Hiatt/Nick Lowe/Ry Cooder tandem, Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Wide River to Cross”, featuring Buddy himself with his trademark grizzled harmonies, and Richard Thompson’s “Waltzing’s For Dreamers”, showcasing Rodriguez’s twangiest vocals and her own breezy fiddle break. Love and Circumstance isn’t likely to raise Carrie’s overall stature, given the sheer glut of rootsy cover albums that see release every year, but with this record’s stately production (Lee Townsend at the knobs), song selection, and Carrie’s own poised vocals, it’s a highly listenable affair that will serve admirably to tide us over until next time.
Rating:
Steve Leftridge teaches literature and film at a high school in Webster Groves, MO, a suburb of St. Louis. He has written about music, film, and books for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, No Depression, and PlaybackSTL. For PopMatters, Steve cowrites the country music column, Kickin’ Up Dust, and is blogging the current American Idol season, which you can read on the Channel Surfing blog. Tweets?: twitter/steveleftridge.
Kansas City Star Review
Review: Carrie Rodriguez
The music world is populated by performers who can do it all: sing, write songs and play several instruments and do it all with personality and panache. Some of them are well-known or famous; others aren't and deserve to be -- which is the category Carrie Rodriguez falls into.
Rodriguez is touring off the album "Love and Circumstance," a collection of cover songs. She opened with one of those -- Buddy Miller's "Wide River To Cross" -- before returning to tracks from her first two studio albums: "Infinite Night" and "Absence" from the "She Ain't Me" album and "I Don't Want To Play House Anymore," " '50s French Movie" and the title track from their album, "Seven Angels On A Bicycle." Then came one of the better moments of her show: her straight-up version of "Steal Your Love," a song written by one of her more obvious inspirations, Lucinda Williams.
Throughout the set, she switched from fiddle to tenor guitar to electric mandolin, showing off a voice that can switch from bluesy to hymnal within the same song. Her genre is Americana/roots and so is her Texas heritage, so she easily handled songs like Gillian Welch's "I Made A Lover's Prayer" and Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again." (She also sang a sultry version of "Happy Birthday" to B2R contributor and music blogger Bill Brownlee that made every guy in the room wish it was his birthday.)
Several of the songs on her setlist were of similar tempo, but she broke the mood with a lively fiddle/mandolin/tambourine instrumental in the middle of the set and then, during her encore, the number "Red Bird," which she performed with opener Jim Lauderdale (it's on his album "Jim Lauderdale & His Bluegrass Band"). She closed her set with a song that she has been performing for years but that she didn't record until she made "Love and Circumstance": the lovely Spanish ballad "Punalada Trapera." The song goes back to her great aunt, Eva Garza, she said before delivering her own lovely version.
Afterward, at the merch table in the back of Knuckleheads, where she signed CDs until her supply was nearly gone, Rodriguez talked about a return trip to Kansas City this summer, when she'll open a show solo/acoustic on a bill that includes Dar Williams, Grace Potter and Sara Watkins.
When a fan suggested that was a bill that rivals this year's revived Lilith Fair, Rodriguez said she'd discussed getting on that roster but it was decided she had no chance. It's their loss, for now, but you've got to believe that sooner or later, tours like that will be soliciting Carrie Rodriguez and not vice versa.
Jim Lauderdale: He came dressed in a slick maroon Manuel suit and opened the evening with a solo-acoustic set that was about as entertaining as a solo-acoustic set can get. It went on a bit too long -- more than an hour -- but he kept it interesting with some corny jokes, a cover of "Lost in the Lonesome Pines" and his own "Hole In My Head," a hit for the Dixie Chicks.
| Timothy Finn, The Star
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
This Week at Amazon...
Amazon.com Sales Rank:
| MP3 Downloads > MP3 Albums > Rock > Folk Rock | |
| MP3 Downloads > MP3 Albums > Rock > Singer-Songwriters | |
| MP3 Downloads > MP3 Albums > Pop > Singer-Songwriters |
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Carrie is American Songwriter's Writer of the Week!
WRITER OF THE WEEK: CARRIE RODRIGUEZ
Singer-songwriter Carrie Rodriguez’s new album, Love & Circumstance, is her take on some staples of the lovesick genre, from “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry” to “I Made A Lover's Prayer." We chatted with Rodriguez about the difference between recording originals and covers, and the future of the music biz.
Read more here: Carrie Rodriguez Q&A
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