Americana woman

Carrie Newcomer steps unassumingly into the Bakehouse, her simple black dress and flat-heeled shoes belying the national fame that's prompted The Village Voice to deem her a "burning talent."\nWith a tilt of her head and a flash of green-blue eyes, she acknowledges the barista behind the Bloomington eatery's counter, asking how she's doing and what's she's been up to. The employee's face immediately registers recognition and she's hooked, telling Newcomer of the past week's events as she brews a cup of coffee for the Bloomington singer-songwriter. \nMinutes later, Newcomer sits down with a loaf of the bakery's rosemary-olive bread, raving about its texture and the coffee's flavor. Listening to her soft-spoken, well-weighted words, it's obvious why personal friend and renowned author Barbera Kingswood describes her as "poet, story-teller, snake-charmer, good neighbor, friend and lover, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace." Newcomer is all of these things packaged into a diminutive form. \nShe's both musician and activist, both small-town enthusiast and big-city performer -- yet after the release of nine albums, Carrie Newcomer hasn't lost the ability to connect with people.\nThis Saturday, Newcomer will join Habitat for Humanity in a benefit concert at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Fee Lane. The proceeds will go toward the Women's Build project, a Habitat initiative composed of all-female building teams. \nWomen's Build coordinator Carrie Thompson says Newcomer came to a few sites to observe construction and was "absolutely sold" on the concept of women joining together in construction. \nAnd, true to her innate spirit of activism, Newcomer was prepared to get her hands a little dirty. She joined Habitat for this year's Women's Build, both working and performing at a job site during the blitz. \n"We really have enjoyed Carrie's presence tremendously on the building sites," Thompson says. "She's an incredibly spiritual person, as her music reflects, and her true appreciation for respecting all people and including all people really comes out in everything she does."\nNewcomer hadn't done much with Habitat before the Women's Build, but the experience definitely left its impact.\n"Imagine 100 women with power tools," Newcomer says, mouth crinkling into a smile. "It's so cool, so very cool." \nSo cool, in fact, that Newcomer plans to donate a large percentage of the concert's revenue to next year's Women's Build project, slated to begin the week of July 4.\nA sense of activism has always permeated Newcomer's thoughtfully-penned music. She writes of common emotion, of what's "very human." And while composing allows a creative outlet for her own emotion, Newcomer's ultimate goal lies in reaching a broad demographic audience.\n"When I write, I'm not writing in my own diary," Newcomer says. "I'm writing of what makes me happy or proud, of what confuses and angers me. I write of things I'll grieve till the day I die, or of things I'm so pleased with I can't contain myself. It's geared toward humans -- I'm not trying to achieve some political end."\nShe writes of commonalities, and believes activism is a manifestation of "being human," but she doesn't let her personal involvement with the issues she discusses in her music stop merely at the creative process.\nShe instead performs benefit concerts on every CD release tour, donating percentages of profit to such organizations as the Literacy Volunteers of America and Planned Parenthood. "The Age of Possibility" tour donated 10 percent of all sales to the National Coalition for Literacy, and Newcomer raised over $20,000 for Planned Parenthood in Monroe County and the state of Indiana through release of a live acoustic CD last year.\nWith the release of last August's Age of Possibility, Newcomer's seventh album on Rounder Records, Newcomer has begun to challenge the "acoustic folk" label the industry has placed on her music.\n"Because I'm a girl with a guitar, there's always the question of what record bin to put me in, and often, that's folk," Newcomer says. "But the poetry of the song is really at the center of what I do, and I like to play with genres."\nA self-described crossover artist, Newcomer flavors her verses with recollections of experience both personal and observed. She writes of relationships between men and women, of political and spiritual experiences. Growing up near Chicago offered early exposure to the sounds of Motown and blues, and such influences as pop-acoustic singer Jackson Browne and the "indescribable" Lyle Lovett have peppered her music as well. \nShe suggests "Americana" as an appropriate label for her work, but notes that the distinctions between genres are blurring -- and she loves it.\n"There's such great creative stuff on the edges," Newcomer says. "Americana is learning farther into country. There's alternative country. There's alternative acoustic."\nBut in the end, Newcomer is not concerned with how she's pinned; she'd rather focus on the music. "Ani DiFranco once said, 'folk is an attitude,'" Newcomer says. "I'll just go with that."\nFor Age of Possibility, Newcomer collaborated with bassist Don Dixon, a "very hip alternative guy" responsible for much of alternative band R.E.M.'s early releases. The result is an album a little darker, a little edgier. \n"There's a saying in music that 'if you're not growing, you're dying,'" Newcomer says. "Each of my albums is different, and this one especially pushes the edges."\nPossibility features a broad range of composition, including several tracks intended for recording only. "Seven Dreams," one such piece, is simply "like a painting -- completed and better not performed live," Newcomer says.\nA native of Elkhart, Ind., Newcomer graduated from Purdue University and began touring around and outside the Midwest shortly thereafter. Her music was in "a different context" at that point -- more girl-with-guitar and the occasional upright bass -- and she performed with her sweetheart's band, New York City's Dorkestra, which she described as "alternative meets Elvis Costello meets Muddy Waters."\nThough initially lured by the big-city arts scene, she moved to Bloomington to care for her ailing mother -- and never left. \n"It was supposed to be an interim move," Newcomer recalls, laughing. "I fell in love with the place. The more I toured, the more I realized what an unexpected little jewel this place really is."\nAnd while she possesses some of the requisite wanderlust all touring musicians must have, she always loves returning to Bloomington after being away.\n"I get my big city fixes," Newcomer admits. "I go to Seattle and buy too many books and go to Boston and drink too much coffee, and there's some sort of energy about New York. But driving back, when those hills start to roll, I'm always glad to return."\nAnd it's that same small-town bond that keeps Newcomer touring in smaller cities at more personal venues, to audiences often composed largely of college students.\n"It's easy to listen on the surface," Newcomer says. "The thing about college audiences is they're willing to listen and consider on a deeper level what's going on. It's really a gift to the artist; I appreciate it considerably."\nShe loves traveling on the road because it allows her to connect personally with audiences -- a luxury not afforded many big-name acts in other genres.\n"The thing about this art form is it chooses you," Newcomer says. "But our society isn't set up for musicians and their message, and it's not always easy. But when audiences share with me, I'm really touched -- more than I think they know."\nShe hears the "hard stuff" as well -- personal accounts of fans and listeners provoked by the poetic lyricism of Newcomer's work. But through it all, she remains "hopelessly, yet unfashionably optimistic."\n"What a good gig," Newcomer says. "I'm up-close, taking risks, putting myself out there. It's easy to get cynical, but there are people out there -- good people -- doing good things, and I'm meeting them. That's a gift"