Carrie Rodriguez

Carrie Rodriguez has been a long-time favorite of Folk Alley from her early days touring with Chip Taylor. The fiddler/singer/songwriter is back on the road, this time in support of ‘Give Me All You Got’ – a collection of songs that she hopes represent her growing songwriting skills and the energy she brings to the stage during her live shows. Carrie and Luke Jacobs visited with Matt Watroba at Folk Alley’s performance studio at Kent State University’s Franklin Hall. Hear them discuss her progression as an artist and watch videos of the pair in action.
Rodriguez, who came to attention a decade ago performing with singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, has established an impressive roster of touring, recording, and co-writing affiliations”with Lucinda Williams, Rickie Lee Jones, John Prine, Mary Gauthier, Alejandro Escovedo, guitarist Bill Frisell, and others. While Carrie’s father, David Rodriguez, was an accomplished songwriter, and took her on tour with him in Europe when she was a teen, song craft, like improvising on fiddle and singing, didn’t come automatically to Carrie. After sitting in on a sound check with her dad’s old Houston pal Lyle Lovett, she detoured from a degree as a classical violinist at Oberlin Conservatory and set herself on course to become a fiddler at the Berklee College of Music. There, her teacher, Matt Glaser, and her fellow students, including roommate Casey Driessen, helped her “find my groove and let go of that wall I had put up as a classical player.”