Welcome to the New 12th Gate!
Tonight, we bring to the stage Carrie Newcomer, contemporary writer, activist and folk singer. Newcomer was born in Dowagiac, Michigan, and raised in Elkhart, Indiana. She attended Goshen College from 1977-1979 and received a B.A. in visual art and education from Purdue University in 1980. From 1982-1988, she was a member of the folk group Stone Soup independently releasing two recordings. We will highlight Stone Soup in a later Saturday Evening.
Between 1984 -1989, Newcomer toured regionally; after 1990, she has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, gaining increased attention. She released her first solo album, Visions and Dreams, in 1991. Between 1993-2008, Newcomer released eleven solo recordings.. The Geography of Light, Newcomer’s most recent recording was released in February 2008.
In 2003, her song “I Should’ve Known Better” appeared on Nickel Creek’s Grammy Award-winning and Gold CD This Side.
In recent years, she has begun running workshops on writing, faith and vocation and activism and the arts.
We start with a music video tonight, Angels Unaware
This interview clip is a bit commercial, but still I thinkit is helpful. Prepraed for the resleas of her latest album, The Geography of Light, Newcomer’s personality still comes through.
As mentioned in the video, nn 2007, Newcomer collaborated with Quaker author Parker J. Palmer co-writing the song “Two Toasts.” published in 2008 on The Geography of Light. Also that year, she collaborated with Quaker authors Scott Russell Sanders, Philip Gulley and J. Brent Bill to create the PBS special Festival of Friends: An Offering in 4 Quaker Voices. In 2007, she collaborated with Scott Russell Sanders and folk songwriters Krista Detor, Tim Grimm, Michael White and Tom Roznosk to create an album and theatrical production entitled Wilderness Plots, based on songs inspired by the short stories of Scott Russell Sanders about the history and settlement of the Ohio Valley.
Don’t Push Send hilariously captures what has become a social phenomenon: e-mail has become a pervasive and hasty form of communication which can lead to personal and professional calamities. With the push of a button, you can now blanket the world with your thoughts. And with a miscued “cc” or a response sent in the heat of the moment, you can now offend your friends, your family, your boss … or your whole company.
We have all been there!
I didn’t know this song, but I am glad I found it. One Woman with a Shovel This is from an excerpt from WTIU’s TV documentary, “Wilderness Plots,” which aired in March 2008.
Again a video and not a live performance, but what a moving song. If Not Now
I’ll close with just a short clip with Carrie singing with Holly Near and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon at a UCC/Disciples women’s meeting just a few months ago. – Light of Change
Links:
The following is a link to a rcent NPR in February of this year. There is an 18 minute segment that you cn listen to, or download for future refer3nce. One of the four songs from Newcomer’s r3cent album is This is a Tree. The words are found at the end of this post.
This link contains no link to music, but it does set a context for the Festival of Friends program that was produced on NPR.
Carrie Newcomer – There is a Tree
Last night I dreamt you very near
Though the night was dark beyond the glass
I knew you’d left before I woke
But you’d fogged the window when you passed
The air was still and smelled like rain
Though I’d never known so dry a spell
And what I heard there in the dark
Are the secrets I will never tell
Chorus: There is a tree beyond this world
In it’s ancient roots a song is curled
I am the fool whose life’s been spent
Between what’s said and what is meant
I didn’t mean what went so wrong
Some things I wish I didn’t know
I’ve always lived inside my head
And often utterly alone
I will be a pillow for your head
You can make me promises you can’t keep
And I’ll believe each word you’ve said
And hum to you while you sleep
Chorus
You took me by my shaking hand
Laughed at me and closed the door
Put your hands to my waist
And waltzed me round the kitchen floor
Chorus
So I will wander without fail
In circles that grow ever wide
The sky expands and then exhales
With an ache that never will subside
Chorus
