Carrie Rodriguez

Overview

Pigeonhole Carrie Rodriguez at your peril. Sure, she has gained notoriety as an Americana singer-songwriter as highlighted by last year’s studio effort, “Give Me All You Got”, which reached no. 1 on the Americana Music Charts. But musical predictability isn’t in her world view or her performing reality. Rodriguez is equally renowned as a violinist, not only accompanying songwriting luminaries such as Lucinda Williams and John Prine, but also touring internationally with esteemed guitarist/composer Bill Frisell, who calls on her to play everything from surf rock to adventurous composed music to spontaneously improvisational jazz. A native of Austin, Texas, Rodriguez is often pegged as a country singer, yet she also sings in fluent Spanish, and is currently working on an album featuring classic Ranchera songs from the Mexican songbook. If you ask Carrie how she would identify herself musically, she would do so with one word: collaborator. Upon graduating from the Berklee College of Music, her earliest musical collaborations were done with legendary singer-songwriter, Chip Taylor, and resulted in four highly-acclaimed duet albums. After a fruitful era of touring, co-writing, and recording with Taylor, Carrie released her debut album, “Seven Angels on a Bicycle” in 2006. Since then she has spent most of her days performing throughout the US and abroad, recording albums with world class producers such as Lee Townsend, performing on numerous radio and television shows including Austin City Limits and The Tonight Show, and co-writing songs with many of her songwriting heroes such as Mary Gauthier and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks. Most recently Carrie has been perfecting the art of the duo with her musical partner, Luke Jacobs, an unexpected and stimulating match for her artistic leanings. Jacobs, a multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter who hails from the north woods of Minnesota adds a compelling Garrison Keillor-esque element to their live show - spinning tales that have both captivated and cracked-up audiences on both sides of the pond throughout their last three years of constant touring. His cool, understated delivery is a striking contrast to Carrie’s earnest passion, and their chemistry is undeniable. Their duo show has been described as “lushly cinematic” by The Washington Post who also noted that “...the pair made a virtue of necessity.” The London Times said, “both performers engaged the audience with their personalities as well as their music . . . as they progressed on a richly rewarding journey.” In January of 2014, Rodriguez and Jacobs released Live at the Cactus - a testament to the intimacy, playfulness and depth of emotion that audiences have been celebrating since the duo began their collaboration. They will be hitting the road in early October of 2014 starting in the Northeast of the US and continuing on to the UK, Ireland, and Italy and are currently finishing up the recording of Jacobs’ debut album, which is being produced by Carrie and will be released in early 2015.