Reared in Austin, TX, and schooled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the fiddle-playing singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez made her recording debut in 2002 by contributing to Chip Taylor’s Let’s Leave This Town. Taylor had first heard Rodriguez at the 2001 South by Southwest conference
In 2001 Chip Taylor asked Rodriguez to join his European tour after seeing her play with the band Hayseed during SXSW, which featured a showcase of artists of Hispanic ancestry. The list of performers was narrow in focus but inspired: Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt, Gloria Estefan, Jose Feliciano, and Carrie Rodriguez. TODO Austin called her the outlier, who was running “on the strength of a career only a decade old, [but] already so highly regarded that she’s not only captured the heart of Americana music aficionados but infused the Latino community with a singular dose of Ameri-Chicana pride.”
Taylor subsequently invited her to tour alongside him, which she did for several years. The duo also released several collaborative albums, which allowed Rodriguez to showcase her fiddle expertise while slowly sharpening her songwriting prowess. She then released her solo debut, Seven Angels on a Bicycle, in 2006. She Ain’t Me followed two years later, featuring an increased emphasis on Rodriguez’s vocals.
Live in Louisville, recorded during her 2007 tour with Lucinda Williams, appeared in 2009. Love and Circumstance, an album of covers of classic love songs, arrived in 2010. That same year, Rodriguez released the compilation album The New Bye & Bye featuring four new songs with Taylor. We Still Love Our Country, an album with Ben Kyle, appeared in 2011, followed by her fifth solo outing, Give Me All You Got, early in 2013. To start off her tour for 2013, Carrie Rodriguez performed for the Black Tie & Boots Inaugural Ball presented by the Texas State Society for President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
On Feb. 19, she will release LOLA, her new bilingual studio album. Recorded in Austin, TX with the Sacred Hearts Band, LOLA features her dear friend Bill Frisell on electric guitar as well as a special guest performance by Raul Malo.
ABOUT LOLA:
I still remember the first moment that I listened to a 1940’s-era recording of my great aunt and Chicana singing sensation, Eva Garza. As the strings and trumpets soared behind her gutsy alto voice, I was immediately moved to tears…and awestruck with the fact that she is a part of me and my family history. Ever since that first listen it has been a dream of mine to record my own brand of Mexican Ranchera music. I am finally ready to embark. The album will be a mixture of new and old; featuring songs in Spanish written by some of my favorite Mexican composers, as well as my original songs written in English and “Spanglish” that are inspired by the Mexican Ranchera songbook. I’ll be heading to the studio in Austin, TX June 6th with my new all-star band, The Sacred Hearts, along with legendary producer Lee Townsend. The band features internationally acclaimed composer/guitarist Bill Frisell (who will also help me with arranging), as well as Viktor Krauss on bass (long-time member of Lyle Lovett’s Large Band), my duo partner in crime Luke Jacobs on pedal steel and guitars, Austin’s talented David Pulkingham on nylon string guitar, and dynamic drummer Brannen Temple. The album will be released in February of 2016, giving me a little time for maternity leave this fall when I’ll be welcoming the newest member of my Sacred Hearts Band into the world!
Ref: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/carrie-rodriguez-mn0000154931/biography
http://www.carrierodriguez.com/
Check out the video below for an inside look at some of the inspiration behind the music.