Adam Carroll
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Adam Carroll

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The best kept secret in music

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"The Austin Chronical"

The sophomore release (Lookin’ Out the Screen Door) from East Texas singer-songwriter Adam Carroll is bulging at the belt with everything that made his debut such a good time: able strumming, fine singing, and  enough stories to satisfy a dozen campfires. Carroll is quickly building his own mythology, his own catalog of East Texas archetypes and legends. The construction of characters is definitely one of this young songwriter’s strong points, each of them reflecting the faith in man and his ultimate capacity for love. - Christopher Hess


"Austin City Search"

“He works hard for the lives he hopes to make better and he lives by the graveyard of the rusted combine”—Errol's Song...Lookin' Out the Screen Door

Adam Carroll is a legendary Texas singer-songwriter-in-the-making. The comparisons are obvious: Townes Van Zandt, Butch Hancock, John Prine and Bob Dylan. But make no mistake, he's his own man, weaving his own tales. With his sophomore release, Carroll continues painting pictures of roads and rivers, the love-struck and lovesick, friends and outcasts. At the core are his warm voice and acoustic guitar, occasionally accented by accordion, harmonica or pedal steel. Producer Lloyd Maines (father of Dixie Chick Natalie) provides this ideal backdrop. Maines is known for finding and producing up-and-coming songwriters such as Richard Buckner, Terri Hendrix and Wayne Hancock. Carroll's songs are full of humor, but never too funny. All about caricatures, but never caricatures. At 25, he is truly wise beyond his years.
- Don Harvey


"San Antonio Express-News"

Lookin’ Out the Screen Door focuses on Carroll’s words, voice, acoustic guitar and harmonica. Maines plays his always-tasteful steel guitar and baritone guitar and Bukka Allen kicks in a bit of accordion and Hammond organ. When Carroll launches into tunes about tool pushers, snow cones and the ramifications thereof, a photo model, old men, lost love, beer, a lost cowboy and comic-strip characters, his words and his ability to sell his songs are all that matter. People who have watched Carroll work live have known he’s the real deal for a long time. People who know him only from recordings now have a second one to prove South of Town was no lucky shot. - Jim Beal Jr.


"Herald-Zeitung"

Sounding just as witty as he did on his first CD, South of Town, the new one (Lookin' Out the Screen Door) takes life one step further. Each song on the album paints such a vivid picture in your mind, you can see the events unfold. Carroll can pack more intimate details into a song than any other songwriter I know. - Dale Martin


"SXSW Live Shots"

Carroll has a voice that's about 20 years older than his face (not to mention a Steve Forbert rasp for a kicker) and a pen that's got another decade on that; and second, like (John) Prine, Carroll has the rare ability to do silly without being corny. His "Mr. Snow Cone Man," backed up against his song about meeting Jesus in his jail cell, showed the even rarer ability to pull off both irony and sincerity with equal deftness . . . he's got not only the worldly sense of someone well beyond his years, but the ability to put it into song without sounding trite or melodramatic. But hell, by set's end, even the punk rockers from the Beerland showcase outside had filtered in and, of a song and a half, were giving Carroll his due applause. - Michael Bertin


Discography

Lookin' Out The Screen Door
South of Town

Photos

Bio

"Far Away Blues"is the third studio album from San Marcos, TX-based singer/songwriter Adam Carroll. "Far Away Blues"showcases the idiosyncratic songwriting style that has endeared Adam to both younger and older Texas music fans and has prompted critics to compare Carroll with John Prine, Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, Todd Snider, and Bob Dylan. "Far Away Blues"is once again produced by the legendary Lloyd Maines (Dixie Chicks, Pat Green, Joe Ely), and retains the intimacy of Carroll's previous albums while filling the sound out significantly. The songs on "Far Away Blues"are Carroll's strongest to date and deal primarily with the ideas of community and family. Adam's grandfather, Ray Davidson, contributes to the family vibe by adding his saxophone to the mix. Texas songwriting legend Ray Wylie Hubbard lends his pen and voice to the cause by co-writing "Last Day of Grace" and duetting with Adam on the same. "Far Away Blues"represents a huge leap forward for Carroll, who has spent the last five years on the road building a large and loyal fan base. He will be touring nationally to support the album. Armed with an arsenal of storytelling songs, an acoustic guitar, and a harmonica, Adam Carroll comes across like a kinder, gentler John Prine or a less cynical, less troubled Townes Van Zandt. That's not a hyperbole. Critics and fans all say so.

"Adam Carroll looks to be the latest great Texas songwriter to graduate from Townes Van Zandt State. John Prine with a big dose of Butch Hancock," wrote Michael Corcoran of the Austin American-Statesman.

"With song pacing and a voice reminiscent of John Prine and an active imagination and slightly twisted sense of humor that likely has the ghost of Townes Van Zandt smiling from the clouds, Carroll is making marks on the international troubadour road," wrote Jim Beal Jr. of the San Antonio Express-News.

Adam Carroll "belts out deceptively catchy story songs reminiscent of early Bob Dylan with a pinch of wit between his cheek and gum, a la John Prine and Todd Snider," wrote Todd Camp of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Except for side trips to Nashville and Memphis - and a memorable tour of Italy with Terry Allen - Carroll has mostly played in his native Texas and in Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Now 27 years old, with the experience of 125 shows in the past year, and with his new live CD, Adam Carroll Live, Carroll looks forward to emerging on an unsuspecting nation. The new CD captures 14 of the best songs from his first two independent releases, which have sold 10,000 copies, and one new song. South of Town (1998) and Lookin' Out the Screen Door (2000) both were produced by Lloyd Maines.

Carroll writes stories about karaoke cowboys, Louisiana rice farmers, oilfield workers, dishwashers, burned-out hippies, Blondie and Dagwood, café busboys, and an assortment of other real-life folks. The new song on Adam Carroll Live is about an apocryphal encounter with a drunken Elvis.

The trip to Italy was special for Carroll because it was an Allen CD that helped him understand he could write songs in his own way. Lubbock on Everything "blew me away and opened my mind because it showed me that songs could be really weird and really funny, but still be true," he said.

Like Prine, he squirms back and forth between the comic and the serious, combining laugh-out-loud humor with poignant undercurrents.

"I feel all this anxiety and pain that comes into these songs, and it seems to come out in a funny way," Carroll said. "It just comes from trying to relate to other people. I just try to use words that leave enough room for you to put yourself into the songs."

Carroll resides in San Marcos, TX and was born and raised in Tyler in East Texas, where he studied classical guitar until he saw a Robert Earl Keen show one night. "I thought, 'I can do this,'" Carroll said. "I always wanted to be a writer. Until I started really writing songs I liked, I always thought I might get some kind of literature degree."

Adam has become a favorite amongst fellow songwriters Beaver Nelson, Slaid Cleaves, Terri Hendrix, Charlie Robison and Todd Snider. Adam's popularity and versatility have allowed him to open for a diverse group of artists from Little Feat, the Flatlanders, Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely, Marshall Krenshaw, Terry Allen and Charlie Robison to Lucinda Williams. Carroll's "Down Home Song Swaps" highlight storytelling and pickin' and have featured award-winning writers Susan Gibson, Slaid Cleaves, Todd Snider, RB Morris, Beaver Nelson, Caroline Herring, Cary Swinney and Nathan Hamilton to name a few.

In addition to critical acclaim (Austin American-Statesman's critics' poll and top-five Austin act for SXSW 2001), he connects personally with fans, with strong showings in four categories in the fan-based Austin Music Awards and as the Citysearch.com no. 1 artist to watch for at SXSW 2001.

In a late 2001 email poll of Texas music fan