[Image via flickr]

Before she moved to Brooklyn in 2007, Carrie Rodriguez was already singing about Brooklyn, or at least the Brooklyn Bridge.  But perhaps we should start at the beginning.  Carrie Rodriguez grew up in Austin, Texas, the daughter of a musician father and artist (and opera buff) mother.  Classically trained as a violinist, she changed direction when a friend of her father’s, Lyle Lovitt, asked her to sit in with his band a couple of times. Soon Carrie was a fiddle for hire, and at one performance at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin in 2001, she was spotted by Chip Taylor.  Chip,who has written a string of hits going back to the 60s, including Wild Thing and Angel in the Morning, hired Carrie to play fiddle in his band.  The two of them played together for about five years.Then with Chip’s help and encouragement, Carrie went solo in 2006 putting out “Seven Angels on a Bicycle,” whose title track includes a mention of the Brooklyn Bridge.  In 2007, Carrie and her band all move to Greenpoint.  In 2008, Carrie puts out her second solo album,” She Ain’t Me,” one of our top albums from last year.

Carrie’s music is rock alt country and even traditional country. Besides the fiddle, Carrie plays a number of four stringed instruments including tenor guitar and a small electric instrument whose name has eluded me but which I’ve dubbed the Stradivarius Stratocaster.  She likes atmospheric sounds and is not afraid of using pedals.  Her lead guitarist, Hans Holzer is quite good. But back to Brooklyn.  In the song “El Dorado” on , Carrie sings about her move and and asks about her new home “is it El Dorado?”  Greenpoint, the city of gold!  Who knew?
—Eliot Wagner