American South in Song: Caroline Herring

Threads of hope, the nature of change both violent and gentle, the present as history and history as the present and always, always, the stories that connect all these things: these are what Caroline Herring offers through the songs on her album Camilla.

Images of a young girl catching fireflies and the flames of buildings burning intertwine in Fireflies. The title track, Camilla, takes its name from a Georgia town, and the story of a pregnant woman there who was beaten during the civil rights days, and went on to become a lawyer. Herring's gift for telling a story and making character ring true in just a few well chosen lines comes through clearly in these songs. White Dress is another song grounded in a moment during the civil rights days, when a young white girl gave a young black woman glass of water.

Until You Go, Flee as a Bird, and Joy Never Ends (Auld Lang Syne) make a trilogy on the depths of grief and the nature of healing, as well as the persistence of connection. Summer Song finds hope in the midst of images of a hard summer in the south. The center piece of the album, though, may well be Maiden Voyage, a story that arose out of Herring’s trip with her then four year old daughter to see the inauguration of President Obama -- which, in fact, they did not get to see -- with connections to history and hope and the long story of America all the same.

Herring, who grew up in Mississippi, has lived in the Washington DC area and in Texas, and is now based in Georgia. All those aspects of the American south, as well as her immersion in southern literature and southern folk tradition find their places in Herring’s work and lend depth to her own unique and compelling perspective and sound. Her graceful alto anchors that sound here, in melody and style that is based in that southern folk music and draws in flavors of country and blues and Appalachian sound.

Artists you’ve met here before along the music road support Herring on this project, too. Andrea Zonn adds violin and viola to Joy Never Ends. Bryn Davies brings in her always tasteful chops on bass through the album, while Claire Holley, Aoife O’Donovan, Kathryn Roberts, Jackie Oates, and Mary Chapin Carpenter sit in for harmonies at various points on the project, which was produced by Erick Jaskowiack.

Vivid storytelling, a unique point of view, a graceful lead voice and fine support, a sense of place that illuminates ideas beyond it boundaries, wisdom in the words and in the music: Caroline Herring offers all of these in Camilla.

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Road Trip Music in Mississippi
ten songs
Andrea Zonn is one of the musicians in Road Trip Music in Illinois: three fiddles

A way to support: you could

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Road Trip Music in Mississippi

From the red clay roads of its northern counties to the ports and harbors along the Gulf, Mississippi is a state drenched in music. The story of Delta blues is there, with Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. You could call Elvis Presley a country blues singer as much as he was a rock’n’ roller. Claire Holley is a contemporary writer and singer from the Magnolia state. Country star Faith Hill is from Mississippi. So is songwriter and producer Marty Stuart. The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? with a soundtrack comprising folk, blues, bluegrass, country, and gospel music, is set there.

As the Great American Road Trip: Music makes its way through Mississippi, the soundtrack comprises two albums from another Mississippi native, Caroline Herring. Herring is a storyteller whose music is informed by history, contemplation, faith, and language. Some of her stories are personal ones, some are character pieces drawn from history, some are set in Mississippi and some have their origins in other landscapes. On her album Twilight there is a vividly imagined emotional and geographic journey on the song Delta Highway. Trace, on Herring’s album Wellspring, takes a journey of history through the lives which have been lived along the Natchez Trace.

Herring tells these tales in a distinctive alto voice that well suits her stories, and with melodies that engage. There are gems on both these albums, stories of Mississippi, Texas, the west, and the heart, all well worth your attention.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Caroline Herring: Golden Apples of the Sun

Music Road: ten songs

Music Road: Road Trip Music in Tennessee

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. Stop by and see what the Library has in mind to inspire travels through Mississippi.


For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Caroline Herring: Golden Apples of the Sun

Golden Apples of the Sun


Listening to Caroline Herring’s latest album is a bit like having a good conversation with a friend, one that spins long into the night as you share stories, talk over old times, think about questions you’ve asked, questions you’ve answered, and those you still have, catch up up on what may be next, and encourage each other along the way.

There is a lot going on in this album, anchored musically by Herring’s natural storyteller’s voice and phrasing, and by sparse production featuring playing by just Herring and producer David Goodrich. The twelve tracks unfold a journey guided by Herrings questing and questioning spirit, something which will come as no surprise to those who have met Herring through her earlier albums Twilight, Wellspring, and Lantana. In the opening cut, Tales of the Islander, you meet the powerful presence of Gulf Coast artist Walter Anderson amidst memories of hurricanes, and in another Herring original, Abuelita, there’s a grandmother who might be yours, might be mine, or might be the woman by the road whose glance holds many stories.

True Colors, which was made popular by rocker Cindy Lauper, is stripped down and reimagined in Herring’s version and emerges as a country tinged love song -- or maybe a gospel one. Either way, it works as true to the essence of the song. So does her take on Long Black Veil, which actually is a contemporary country song although it’s often taken for an ancient folk ballad. She puts her own stamp on the blues song See See Rider, too, subtly recasting it as a song of freedom rather than one of escape.

A Little Bit of Mercy, another one of the originals, offers the chance and invitation to forgive, both one’s own self, and others. Song of the Wandering Aengus, from which the tile comes, is a WB Yeats poem set to music. It’s been recorded before, too, but again Herring is unafraid to strike her own balance with the ideas of the song and add to the understanding of it. The Wild Rose is a mosaic of sorts, with pieces from Herring, Neruda, and Berry, all working together to make a pattern where the ideas turn and dance with each other. It's a song that bears repeated listening.

As does the whole album. There are more facets to this gem each time around.


photograph of Caroline Herring at Celtic Connections Festival, copyright Kerry Dexter

you may also want to see

Music Road: ten songs

caroline herring: lantana

Wilderness Plots: the dvd

Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet

-->If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road and elsewhere,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Patrick season: thinking about Celtic spirituality

Irishman John O’Donoghue was a thinker, philosopher, poet, and spiritual teacher who died in January while still in his early fifties. On of the last recorded interviews he did was with Krista Tippett. host of the American Public Radio program Speaking of Faith. It’s a wide ranging conversation, as Tippett’s interviews always are, covering topics such as the nature of God, the nature of beauty, what life is all about, what’s unique about Celtic spirituality, and also what it means to be in service to a calling. One of the examples they get into with the latter is music. You may hear the hour long radio program here.

One of O’Donoghue’s best known books is Anam Cara, which is Irish for soul friend. Life, death, and love through the places where Celtic mysticism and Christian understanding meet are the topics.

Music to go along with this:
Caroline Herring: Twilight Her music is of the American folk tradition rather than immediately Celtic, but she definitely knows how to write about spiritual questions, framed in the life of the American South

Cathie Ryan: The Music of What Happens If you’ve traveled along the Music Road before, you've likely met Ryan’s work. Here she offers songs about motherhood, faith, leaving, returning, and change, among other things.

The Music of What Happens

If you’re up for a up for a bit more contemplation and a few more music ideas. you may want to see this post.

now playing: caroline herring: lantana

Caroline Herring sees her native ground of the American south with a poet’s eye and a seeker’s heart. Through ten cuts on her latest release, Lantana, she draws her listeners into reflections on marriage, family, faith, and finding one’s place in an ever shifting and changing world, a world that is framed as much in the dust of red clay roads as it is in the sometimes strange and powerful paths of the people who travel them. As gifted a singer as she a writer, Herring knows how to tell these stories and when to get out of their way. She grew up in Mississippi, and that experience infuses her work, as does the time she’s spent living in Austin, the Washington DC area, and her current home, Georgia.

In the tradition of folk murder ballads, Herring takes on the story of Susan Smith, who drowned her children in search of other loves. Lay My Burden down is a contemporary yet timeless take on the southern gospel sound. In Heartbreak Tonight Herring tells of a woman that any who’ve grown up in the south will know, as will any who’ve seen their dreams change and reflected on that. In a very different view of that journey, there’s States of Grace. Herring also shines on the well chosen covers she’s included, especially Midnight on the Water.

She’s been compared to Joni Mitchell. That comparison stands, both for the quality of her writing and singing, and her ability to convey a unique perspective.


you may also want to see this post which has comment on one of Herring’s songs from an earlier album

ten songs

Recently I saw a discussion on another site : if you could only have ten songs to listen to, what would they be? and why?

My choices have to to with memories of place and landscape -- although not necessarily those named in the song -- with faith, and with journeys of one sort or another. Links are to places where you may preview excerpts of the songs if you’d like. I like the way these artists think, and I’d recommend exploring their work beyond the songs I’ve named here, too


Tish Hinojosa -- Amanecer
all my time in New Mexico. also, when I worked in public radio, in Florida, I used to use this as a signature sign on to my early morning weekend shows.
Seamus Begley -- The Kerry Hills -- the west of Ireland


Kathy Mattea -- You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive, from her album Coal, which is coming out in April.I spent some impressionable years living in Appalachia, and those landscapes and people never leave your mind
George Strait -- Amarillo by Morning Texas. rodeo, the road, and Texas...
Cathie Ryan -- The Farthest Wave Grief and loss, change, hope, faith, Ireland, America, and the seas between, journeys of the heart and grace in understatement
Cathie Ryan -- In My Tribe"In my tribe, music is blood memory."
Altan -- Ten Thousand Miles -- homecoming and leave taking, an American folksong by musicians from Donegal
Carrie Newcomer -- There Is a Tree what it's like, and what it is not like, to be called to be an artist and a creator
Cara Dillon -- There Were Roses the cost of politics, and the power of friendship and community


Caroline Herring -- Carolina Moon
" a Carolina Moon is rising in the Texas sky” and what more could you want, except love, bluegrass, and biscuits, all of which are in the song.