By Brian Baker
It seems almost inconceivable that Carrie Rodriguez could have accomplished all that she has in the past five years. She’s hustled any odd fiddle gig she could find in her Austin, Texas hometown and achieved worldwide acclaim with her trio of duet records with songwriting legend Chip Taylor. Last summer, she issued her lone debut, Seven Angels on a Bicycle. The fact that Rodriguez’s journey began with her education as a classical violinist makes her story all the more incredible.
The daughter of a painter mother and a folksinger father, Rodriguez took to classical music as a teenager and chose to pursue violin after seeing Itzak Perlman in concert. She eventually earned a scholarship to Oberlin but midway through her first year at the prestigious music school, life and Lyle Lovett intervened.
“He’s an old friend of my dad’s, and he invited me to his show and told me I should bring my fiddle to sound check, and sit in with his band,” says Rodriguez via cell phone from her tour van, en route to a solo gig in Memphis. “I think that’s what made me decide, ‘Hey, this is a lot more fun than what I’m doing right now.’ I think I wanted to be in Lyle Lovett’s band for the rest of my life.”
Although she was, by her own admission, completely unskilled at the country/bluegrass/roots end of the musical spectrum, Rodriguez was transfixed by it and began seeking a more practical education. The very night of the Lovett show in Cleveland, Rodriguez did an online search and discovered the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she transferred that fall in an effort to learn the contemporary music not covered by her classical training. That necessitated a switch, in technique and mindset, from violin to fiddle.
“That was a hard call to my grandmother to say I’m leaving this world-renowned classical conservatory to go learn how to play the fiddle,” says Rodriguez with a laugh. “But I’m glad I did it.”
After graduation, Rodriguez moved back to Austin, where there’s no shortage of positions for aspiring fiddle players, or fiddle players to fill them. She took whatever gigs she could pick up along the way. One such job back in 2001 found her providing fiddle for fringe country group Hayseed at an in-store performance during the South by Southwest music festival. Singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, known famously for his compositions “Angel in the Morning” and “Wild Thing,” saw Rodriguez that day and, entranced by her presence, hired her for his own band. Although she had never really sung as part of her musical education or experience, Taylor gave her backing vocal duties and quickly brought her up front to share the microphone for a duet. Taylor and Rodriguez became a hit on stage, and they took their performing chemistry into the studio for three amazing albums together: 2002’s Let’s Leave This Town, 2003’s The Trouble with Humans and 2005’s Red Dog Tracks.
Given Rodriguez’s considerable talent and the overwhelmingly positive notices she’s received as Taylor’s vocal and instrumental foil over the past five years, it comes as no surprise that she would eventually test the solo waters. That time came last August when Rodriguez released her atmospherically rootsy solo debut, Seven Angels on a Bicycle.
“It was something that evolved naturally, I guess,” says Rodriguez. “We had both talked about it in the last couple of years and it just felt like the right time to see what else was in there that might come out of me, doing things on my own.”
Although Rodriguez’s album is nearly a year old now, the solo experience still seems relatively fresh to her. After Seven Angels’ release, she and Taylor toured their duet act last fall (she opened several shows as a solo act), so her current solo tour, which began earlier this year, is really the first true solo touring she’s done on the album.
“I was kind of easing into doing my own shows,” says Rodriguez. “It hasn’t been until the last three or four months that I hit the road by myself with my band. It still feels really new to me, and I’m having a great time. I’ve got an awesome band. The guitarist is a guy from Nashville whose name is Hans Holzen — we’ve known each other for a few years now — and the upright bass player is from Boston, and his name is Kyle Kegeris, and I play an electric mandolin in the show, and fiddle.”
Seven Angels may have come out under Rodriguez’s own name, but Taylor was a big presence as writer/co-writer, performer and producer. Still, the album clearly represents a shift from her co-billed work with Taylor toward something more ephemeral and evocative, like a rootsy vision of Beth Orton or Jane Siberry.
“I probably listen to more of that type of music than I do alt-country or country,” says Rodriguez with a laugh. “The approach was different from the duet records even though the writing process was something that Chip and I did together, or he would bring me songs that he thought might be good for me. I basically took all the songs home and meditated on them for awhile and tried to figure out how I would play them without anybody else, which meant strumming things on my fiddle. I don’t play guitar so my approach is a little different.”
Also different on Seven Angels were Rodriguez’s musical collaborators, including sonic guitar master Bill Frisell and pedal steel icon Greg Leisz. After she divined the right way to present the songs for the album, Rodriguez sent demos to all the musicians and then worked with them in the studio to create Seven Angels’ spartan but powerful mood.
“I guess my main goal was to be open to new ideas,” says Rodriguez. “There’s more space in a lot of the songs than if they were acoustic guitar driven, and maybe a little more room for improvisation. Certainly having people like Bill Frisell is a huge part of why it came out sounding like it did. He’s an incredibly atmospheric player. All those guys are. My main thing is that I wanted them to be able to do what they do and not give too much direction that would screw it up.”
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Seven Angels is the fact that, while it sounds very crafted and assembled, the album was performed by the band as an integral unit playing essentially live in the studio. Rodriguez herself was amazed by the process.
“I was in another state, just having that music around me and singing over it was so beautiful,” she says incredulously. “Normally I would be kind of self-conscious about my vocals. Sometimes when you’re in the studio, you worry that something wasn’t quite in tune or whatever, but I just didn’t care because the music was so beautiful. It was a beautiful experience.”
Carrie Rodriguez, Tim Easton
8 p.m. Friday, June 22
Kent Stage
175 E. Main St., Kent
330.677.5005
Tickets: $10 advance, $15 day of show
