Fiddle-toting singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez and country/bluegrass artist Jim Lauderdale bring their musical styling to Des Moines as part of the Civic Center's new concert series "LIVE AT THE TEMPLE. Your Music. Up Close." on Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. at the Civic Center's Temple Theater. All concerts in the LIVE AT THE TEMPLE concert series are a presentation of the Prairie Meadows Temple Theater Series.
Tickets are on sale to the public at the Civic Center Ticket Office, all Ticketmaster locations, charge-by-phone at (800) 745-8000 and online at
CivicCenter.org.
Saturday May 15 7:30 p.m. $32.50
All pricing includes a Building Restoration Fee of $2.50
CARRIE RODRIGUEZ
Not yet 30, and with a critically-acclaimed solo record and several well-received duet records in her wake, the classically trained singer/songwriter has just begun flexing her artistic muscles, still figuring out how far her talents will take her.
Long before Carrie Rodriguez was a fiddle-toting, mandoguitar-slinging Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, she was a junior violin student in Austin, Texas, absorbing the influences of an opera-obsessed mom and folk-singing dad. "In kindergarten, we had a pilot program at my public elementary school to teach five year olds Suzuki violin lessons," Rodriguez recalls. "They would give the lessons during naptime, and I must have gotten out to go to the bathroom. And I remember walking down the hallway and hearing these violins scratching out 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' I was immediately drawn to that and came home and told mom I wanted to take violin lessons."
"Also," she adds, "I really hated naptime."
Group lessons soon led to private lessons, which led Carrie to a conservatory program at Oberlin. Enter Lyle Lovett, a family friend, who invited Carrie to sit in with his band at sound check in Cleveland, an experience that was both inspiring and frustrating. "My feel was awful and I knew it," she recalls. "But I was mesmerized by [Lovett fiddler] Andrea Zonn. I wanted to do what she was doing."
Rodriguez transferred to Boston's Berklee College of Music, where she found no shortage of resources for transforming "violin" into "fiddle." "Casey Driessen is now one of the greatest American fiddle players on the scene (plays with Bela Fleck, Tim O'Brien), and he was my roommate," Rodriguez recalls. "He taught me one of the first fiddle tunes I ever learned."
Berklee also set the table for a love of collaboration, which led to three duet records (and many touring miles) with singer/songwriter Chip Taylor, who was instrumental in helping Carrie to realize her debut album, SEVEN ANGELS ON A BICYCLE. The Associated Press raved, "...her voice has a character few achieve. Rather than a support player taking a minor turn, she uses her first solo album to mark her ground as a singular talent." For SHE AIN'T ME, Rodriguez knew it was time to form new collaborations and she ended up with an impressive list of co-writers, including Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Dan Wilson (Semisonic), Jim Boquist (Son Volt) and Mary Gauthier.
"I feel the most comfortable when I have someone to react to," Rodriguez says. "The process was completely different with each person I wrote with. For example, with Mary Gauthier we sat down one rainy afternoon in New York City and wrote the entire song, more or less. With Dan Wilson we just came up with a little melody and a few snippets of words while we were in the same room. Later, I wrote the verses, he came up with a great chorus, and we put the song together via e-mail and a few phone calls."
Lucinda Williams wasn't among the co-writers, but she makes her presence felt, singing backup on "Mask of Moses" while singing Carrie's praises elsewhere. After receiving a copy of SEVEN ANGELS ON A BICYCLE from Chip Taylor, Lucinda told the New York Times "...I have to say I am very impressed. She's got something unique in her voice that's very subtle and a little smoky and sweet. I detect a certain wisdom in her, and yet a sense of wonder as well." Rodriguez recalls, "Lucinda had sent me this beautiful email, saying how much she loved my record, and how she really saw something special there. And if I ever wanted to open up for her, that'd be great. It was like, wow! Merry Christmas!"
Rodriguez subsequently toured with Williams, and also sat in on fiddle during Lucinda's sets. And it was on the heels of a night out with Williams that Rodriguez met Malcolm Burn-whose work on she'd admired on Emmylou Harris's WRECKING BALL (engineer and musician) and Chris Whitley's LIVING WITH THE LAW (producer and musician)-- for an early chat about her next record. "I was pretty hung-over that morning, in my pajamas, looking like a train wreck," Rodriguez admits. "And Malcolm comes over, looking all dapper in his vintage three-piece suit."
Appearances were quickly dismissed as Malcolm made spot-on suggestions about Carrie's songs, and offered production ideas that made her feel her own project would be a worthy addition to the "desert island discs" Burn has already recorded. "I knew immediately that this was the guy," she recalls.
The result is a record that lives up to its name-an expectation-confounding statement, equal parts organic folk and expansive atmosphere, yet one that comes closest to revealing what Carrie Rodriguez is all about. Think you already know? Think again.
Jim Lauderdale is a multi-talented performer and songwriter, with successes in both country and bluegrass music. His roots stem from the Carolinas, yet his career has taken him all over the United States and abroad, making him an international recording artist with an ever-growing fan base. Jim won "Artist of the Year" and "Song of the Year" at the first "Honors and Awards Show" held by the Americana Music Association in 2002. Subsequently, he has hosted this same show for the last seven years.
He is among Nashville's "A" list of songwriters, with songs recorded by artists such as: Patty Loveless,
George Jones, The Dixie Chicks, Solomon Burke, Mark Chesnutt, Dave Edmunds,
John Mayall, Kathy Mattea,
Lee Ann Womack,
Gary Allan,
Blake Shelton. Vince Gill, and George Strait. He also contributed several songs to the successful soundtrack of the George Strait film, "Pure Country." Not content to just write hits for the stars, he's toured with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter,
Rhonda Vincent and
Elvis Costello, among others.
Jim's musical influences include the legendary Dr.
Ralph Stanley and
George Jones. These influences and his unique sense of melody and lyric help forge a sound that is truly his own. He is a 2 time Grammy winner, winning his first in 2002 with Dr.
Ralph Stanley for "Lost in the Lonesome Pines" (Dualtone). His next one came for his second "solo" bluegrass album, "The Bluegrass Diaries" (Yep Roc 2007) at the 50th Grammy Awards! His first CD with Dr. Stanley, "I Feel Like Singing Today" ( Dualtone/Rebel 1999) received a Grammy nomination as did his first solo bluegrass CD titled "Bluegrass"(Yep Roc) from 2006.
As a performer his credits include production, writing and collaborating on albums such as, "Wait 'Til Spring" (SkyCrunch/Dualtone 2003) with Donna the Buffalo, and "Headed for the Hills" (Dualtone 2004) with Grateful Dead lyricist
Robert Hunter. The remainder of Jim's 17 albums include: "Planet of Love" (Reprise 1991), "Pretty Close to the Truth" (Atlantic 1994), "Every Second Counts" (Atlantic 1995), "Persimmons" (Upstart 1998), "Whisper" (BNA 1998), "Onward Through It All" (RCA 1999), "The Other Sessions" (Dualtone 2001), "The Hummingbirds" (Dualtone 2002), "Bluegrass" (Yep Roc 2006), "Country Super Hits, Volume 1" (Yep Roc 2006), "Honey Songs" (Yep Roc 2008), and "Could We Get Any Closer?" (SkyCrunch 2009).
"It's been a particularly great period for me," says Lauderdale. "Thanks to the records - I'm performing more and more, which I love. And I love that I can play the Opry one weekend, a jam-band festival the next and then a bluegrass festival the following week. That's really inspiring to me and I think there's a real thread there. The roots are the same for all of them and that's the music I'm interested in."
The Civic Center of Greater Des Moines is a private not-for-profit corporation celebrating over 30 years of presenting the performing arts to Iowa and the surrounding states. It is the presenter of major Broadway and educational touring companies, performers and groups, and is the performing home of many local and regional groups, including the Des Moines Symphony and StageWest. All performances of the Broadway Series are supported by Willis Auto Campus. All performances at the Civic Center's Temple Theater are supported by Prairie Meadows. All performances of the Family Series are supported by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
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