The Geography of Light.THE GEOGRAPHY OF LIGHT Carrie Newcomer (Rounder, 2008) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 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 Indigo Girls are an American folk rock duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They got their start in Atlanta as a regular act at The Little 5 Points Pub and were tangentially part of the Athens, Georgia college rock scene that included The B-52's, Pylon, R.E.M. , Alanis Morissette, and Dar Williams Dar Williams (full name Dorothy Snowden Williams, born 1967) is an American singer-songwriter specializing in what can be described as "folk-pop". She is a frequent performer at folk festivals across the nation, such as the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, New . Newcomer has been performing since the 1980s (for years as part of the folk group Stone Soup
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 Darkness and the Light (1942) is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon. Written in 1941, at the most frightening point of World War II, Stapledon projects two separate futures for humanity, depending not on the outcome of that particular conflict but on the 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 clothe tr.v. clothed or clad , cloth·ing, clothes 1. To put clothes on; dress. 2. To provide clothes for. 3. To cover as if with clothing. 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 albums proceeds to the American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) affiliated organization which works for social justice, peace and reconciliation, abolition of the death penalty, and human rights, and provides humanitarian relief. , 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 late·com·er n. 1. One that arrives late: waited for the latecomers to be seated. 2. A recent arrival, participant, or convert: to Newcomer, but she has joined my pantheon of inspirational women of song. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion