Carolyn Currie

Look out Dar Williams and Catie Curtis, there’s a western voice working your territory -- and doing a fine job of it. Carolyn Currie’s lyrics are both more visual and a bit more gentle than those two singers, but she shares their gift for penetrating observation and lyrical intricacy.

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- Dirty Linen

“I own a new age shop and get dozens of CD demos. Many are very good, but only once in a blue moon do I get one that just knocks my socks off, Kiss of Ghosts did just this. The CD is truly mesmerizing. Carolyn’s voice is just wonderful, sweet but not fragile, full of emotion. The imagery she paints with her lyrics transports me . . . I have run the whole gamut of emotion listening to this CD, empowered, vengeful, reminiscent, and charmed. She is a masterful writer.” - New Millennium News Letter

“Carolyn Currie (is) an incredible songwriter with a unique voice that sets her apart from her contemporaries. Carolyn's third album "Kiss of Ghosts", is soon to be released...in our opinion, Carolyn is simply a stunning artist.” - Circular Records Web Review

Shakabrah Java on Sixth Avenue in Tacoma has done a better job of booking original acts than just about any nightclub or casino in town. Shakabrah has outdone even themselves this time. On Saturday, July 31, Carolyn Currie will grace the stage of Tacoma’s hippest coffee house. Currie is one of the hottest performers in the Seattle music scene and is considered one of the best songwriters in the country.

Currie’s voice has been described as liquid silver and is complemented with her mastery of both the 12 and 6-string guitar. This is the only must see performance in town this weekend. Even more impressive than Currie’s obvious talent as a performer is her genius as a songwriter and lyricist. You will swear, by the end of the night, that at least one of her poetic melodies was written specifically about you.
- Tacoma Reporter

Be prepared to experience insight, reflection, humor and beauty. Currie’s distinctive voice weaves through your thoughts, binding itself permanently to the fabric of your brain. Her music has a cool, layered sound and is utterly spell–binding. Just try concentrating on something else, I dare you. It’s quite impossible to not give your full attention to Currie, her enchanting voice, music and exceptional lyrics simply will not allow it.
- Femme Musique

Currie has a sure voice that steadily relates to each and every person it touches with an exceptional confidence that tattles away tales that we’ve all experienced. Her songs, while fragile, have a sort of underlying fierce determination that demand to be heard and refract the light tones perfectly. Utterly outstanding.”
- J-Sin Smother.net

I think Carolyn Currie is one of the best "unknown" singers around. You almost certainly won't find her music in the "big box" or chain music stores. Though I'm not particularly qualified to be a music critic, I have been a big fan of folk, ballad and Celtic music for decades. Ms Currie's voice is uniquely beautiful-- rich and sensual, yet also a perfect match for the sad/haunting songs that predominate her work (and I can also strongly recommend her earlier CDs: "No Heroes" and "Standing Stones"). She writes her own music and the lyrics are particularly poetic and often very moving. Aside from the the great "3 Lady J's" of folk music (i.e. Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell), Carolyn Currie is my favorite female singer. - Amazon.com

I stumbled on Carolyn Currie's music and she has become one of my all time favorite artists. Her lyrics are haunting, personal and real as is her music.
- Amazon.com

"Waves of Silence" by Carolyn Currie

CD Review by Bob McKillop

Carolyn Currie has a gift for getting inside the heads of the people who inspire her songs and bringing the deep essence of their experiences back to the world for the rest of us to understand on a level that we otherwise would not even approach. Let’s face it, this is the job description for a songwriter, and she is amazingly qualified for the position.

Her fourth CD is “Waves of Silence”, and it is filled with quiet but powerful energy and insight. All of these songs are well constructed and beautifully performed and produced. Several of them stand out as amazing examples of songwriting inspiration, arrangement, and musicianship.

Carolyn’s voice is distinctive in its understatement. Her quiet, quivering, almost whispered lyrics, with clicking consonants and crackling sibilance, instills in the listener a confidence in her care and love for the song. The very well executed finger picked guitar style that she employs consistently throughout this record might be considered overused in other circumstances, but it works here, thanks to the wonderful instrumentation and arrangements.

The opening song is “Rain”. Carolyn’s acoustic guitar and David Lange’s keyboard combine to evoke the feel of a rain shower beginning and intensifying. The track is perfect for the theme of the song. It has been very difficult for artists to address the issue of the Iraqi war without coming across in a trite or off-hand manner. Carolyn gets it right, and as a parent of young children, she is writing from direct experience here. The task of finding a way to explain war to kids, and to help them feel safe, when you’re not so sure about that yourself, is a tough job.

“But the bombs have started raining from the Bagdad sky today

And my children keep on asking about this war

Yes I know that I’m the grown-up but I don’t know what to say

I don’t believe in violence

I don’t believe in hatred

And I think the world’s a scary place to be today”

Speaking as a songwriter, I must say that there are two songs on this disc that are truly inspiring. One of them is entitled “After”, and the other is “Rolling Thunder”.

“After” is a devastating study of the experience of a wife left behind by the suicide of her husband. How Carolyn got this far inside the head of someone in this situation is beyond me. Her vocals are perfect: she sounds scared, angry, devastated, and confused but determined to find a way out of the grief. In the second verse, an electric bass and kick drum groove appears in a very subtle and buried country beat, and a quiet rockabilly electric guitar riff is heard here and there like the sound of a distant storm. These parts never overpower the acoustic guitar or vocal track. The lyrics took me far down inside this deep, personal experience. Carolyn somehow manages to tell this story clearly and concisely in images and narrative that are at once highly dramatic, but conversational. No small feat.

“But now the phone just keeps on ringing

In my head and in my dreams.

With hollow eyes and silence

I am living in a scream.

And the words bled out around me

As surely did your life,

And I can’t describe the horror now

Of living as your wife.”

In “Rolling Thunder” Carolyn does it again. This young woman songwriter was born around the time that the Vietnam war was just ending. She somehow manages to capture, in a masterful song, the tragedy and anger and love wrapped up inside a Vietnam veteran who survived the war only to be disabled and diseased by the weapons he and his comrades used there.

A military beat on a snare drum sets the time and place, and reverbed bass drums become cannon and bombs in the not-far-enough-away distance. The track is moody, introspective, and sad, but filled with the wisdom of experience and grief. The verses tell the story and bring the experience to the listener, but the chorus lifts us out of the song like a helicopter rising out of the jungle. We gain perspective, and we come close to understanding the deep heartbreak and human connection that is conveyed in this song (but of course, we never truly will.)

“When the snow’s falling down soft in December

Closing my eyes I can’t help but remember

The light sting of chemicals drifting around us

And changing our world.

And the cancers that bloom in our bodies and minds,

The battles we still seem to fight all the time,

And the way Vietnam marked us and claimed us as hers,

My brothers in arms”

Wow.

Carolyn gives us a break from the emotional roller coaster with “Hot for a house”. This song has a sultry bass and guitar track, and pouty, sexy vocals and lyrics. An erotic household budget? The use of womanly wiles to get material possessions? It’s all here. And I’m pretty sure she got the house. This really is a fun song.

“Baby, oh baby, that little red house is all that I need and now

Darlin’ lover darlin’, a little red house with a garden

I’ll be your lover, I’ll hold you so sweet

Oh tonight, oh tonight, you're in for a treat

The interest is low and the market is good

Come on baby, oh lover, baby buy for me buy for me

Do what you should now baby”

You’ve got to hear this one to really appreciate it!

Carolyn recently signed with High Horse Records, and they released this disc. It was co-produced by Carolyn and David Lange (Joe Crookston, David Roth), who also did the recording and engineering. He helmed Carolyn’s earlier release, “Kiss of Ghosts” as well. The tracks are razor sharp, the parts are well separated, and the whole package just brings joy to the listener. There are some great arrangements here, too, and Lange’s musicianship on the keyboard is impressive. Roberta Downey, Paul Elliott, and Dan Mohler (cello, fiddle, and fretless bass, respectively), fill lots of emotional space with the string tracks. John Morton’s electric guitar adds creative highlights to all of these songs.

Carolyn’s CD pre-release party was held at the Southworth Planetarium on the USM Portland Campus, on December 6th. It sold out completely. She has scheduled another performance there for folks who couldn’t get in to the first one (although many of the attendees at the first concert immediately re-upped for the second one!) This second chance to hear Carolyn live is on January 17, 2009, again at the Southworth Planetarium. I’ve heard it’s a great place to see some stars.

You can purchase “Waves of Silence” (either MP3 downloads or the physical CD) directly from Carolyn’s website. I highly recommend that you own these songs. - MaineFolkMusic.com