Carrie Newcomer

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Carrie Newcomer The Age of Possibility album cover, 2000

Carrie Newcomer (born 1958), a native of Elkhart, Indiana, is an American singer and songwriter. During the 1980s she was a member of the folk group Stone Soup. Since the early 1990s she has released a number of solo albums.

Describing Carrie Newcomer as a singer-songwriter is a little like saying Noah was a boat-builder. So much goes unsaid when we fall to easy labels. She has pursed her passion for music and justice across two continents, and considered one of the definitive voices of the heartland. She has been an artist, a teacher, a truck stop waitress, a single mother, an activist and writes and sings about the human condition with compassion and clarity. Newcomer presents ideas of spirituality in her music that are compelling and challenge traditional interpretations of theology. Her music draws a bridge between the everyday and the divine rather than setting up a fence between them. Newcomer’s activism springs from her Quaker faith and belief in the dignity and value of the individual, the power of that individual’s calling, and the importance of the gathered community. She supports and contributes a portion of her touring CD sales to many charitable organizations, including America’s Second Harvest, The American Friends Service Committee and Planned Parenthood.

In 2006 Newcomer released her tenth Philo/Rounder release, Regulars and Refugees, a songwriting exploration of the human/spiritual condition told from the viewpoints of the characters in a small town diner.

Newcomer has garnered critical acclaim in recent years from the music media (Rolling Stone, USA Today, Acoustic Guitar) and by sharing the stage with a variety other performers, including Alison Krauss, Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter. In 2003 her song, “I Should’ve Known Better” appeared on Nickel Creek’s Grammy Award-winning and Gold CD This Side, and has performed everywhere from bars and bowling alleys to colleges and churches to Carnegie Hall. She currently resides in Southern Indiana, continuing to perform concerts and facilitating writing and songwriting, faith and activism, and faith and vocation workshops

Quotes - To my mind - a writer’s mind- Carrie Newcomer is much more than a musician. She’s a poet, storyteller, snake-charmer, good neighbor, friend and lover, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace.All this, and she comes with a voice that declares: “Sit down here a minute and listen.” Who could ask for more?” Barbara Kingsolver (Author of The Poisonwood Bible)

"Carrie is a touchstone of authenticity in an image-driven, media-defined musical world. She is a beautiful singer and songwriter, and deeply refreshing."-Rosanne Cash

“It is a mark of spirutal range as well as artisitic virtuosity when a singer-songwriter can make dance one moment, laugh the next, and then take you to a deeply moving, even prayerful place, as she touches on regret, loss, or grief, or on the wonder of being alive. Carrie’s music does all of this for me and more.” -Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach

Carrie Newcomer inspires me. She integrates her music and lyrics with her faith and passion for justice. Her music tells stories of the lives and struggles, the hopes and dreams, of immigrants, single mothers and low-wage workers. They are stories of real life that teach spiritual truths. And hovering over all the stories "there is a spirit moving" -a spirit of hope and grace, a spirit calling us to "be not afraid." Jim Wallis, bestselling author of God's Politics: What the Right Gets Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get, convener of Call to Renewal, editor of Sojourners.

"The bluesy warmth of her voice and the support of musicians who give these confessions an edgy propulsion. Rapturously tuneful, Newcomer's material asks all the right questions and refuses to settle for easy answers." -- Rolling Stone

"She has a warm spirit, heated intelligence, burning talent. Her voice will power through the room . . . glinting with musical brightness and emotional layers." --The Village Voice

"I was captivated by her poise, the deceptively effortless assurance of her songwriting, and her voice, an instrument as dark, rich and luscious as Godiva chocolate." -- Austin American-Statesman