Live

CARRIE RODRIGUEZ, ROMANTICA

PLUSH

Monday, May 11

Seeing Carrie Rodriguez play on the Plush stage Monday night, it was
clear that at the age of 30, she’s earned her place as a headlining
solo act, whatever her advantages.

Her Miss America smile lit up the room. “It’s our first time in
Tucson,” she said, “so I’d have been happy if five people showed up!”
Many times that number cheered her and invited her back.

Rodriguez’ great aunt, Eva Garza, recorded on the Decca label in the
1950s, and Lucinda Williams considers her father—songwriter,
attorney and activist David Rodriguez—a genius and a close
friend. Carrie has played violin since age 5, and when she was in
conservatory at Oberlin College, family friend Lyle Lovett invited her
to sit in on a sound check. She says that’s when she realized she
didn’t have the feel. Her solution was to transfer to the Berklee
College of Music.

The road to failure is littered with folks who had advantages but
lacked the talent, drive, character, personality or work ethic to
capitalize. Rodriguez is not lacking in any of these areas; she paid
her dues, via a five-year stint accompanying Chip Taylor, brother of
actor Jon Voight and author of top hits for Janis Joplin, Waylon
Jennings and Willie Nelson, among others. Recording, writing and
touring with him, she honed her fiddling skills, and he increasingly
urged her to use her lyrical, but earthy, voice.

Taylor was a key figure on her debut album, Seven Angels on a
Bicycle, released in 2006, but on her 2008 release, She Ain’t
Me, Rodriguez came fully into her own, evolving a more mature and
broader range of material and working with songwriters who challenged
her boundaries.

She Ain’t Me was produced by Malcolm Burn, Emmylou Harris’
pick for Wrecking Ball. Burns’ atmospherics are difficult to
reproduce on small stages, but without them, the strength of
Rodriguez’s songs was more apparent. Near the end of the set, she
brought on members of opener Romantica to achieve more texture.

The highlight of the set was an emotional cover, in Spanish, of one
of Garza’s hits about a treacherous love, while the brutally haunting
“Absence,” co-written with Mary Gauthier, highlighted the
now-considerable “feel” of her fiddle-playing.

This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.