Edie Carey

I heard someone beside me say ‘who is that warming up?’

I glanced easily over my shoulder. ‘Edie Carey’ I said to no one in particular but she said, ‘who?’ almost as fast as I’d said it.

‘Edie Carey’, a singer songwriter from the east coast.’ She didn’t know so I didn’t bother with any other explanation.

So that was my most pleasant surprise tonight…Edie Carey opening for Melissa Ferrick at Poor David’s Pub. Edie Carey who is now a resident of Atlanta by way of Vermont, Boston and New York, in that order, was brilliant. My new favorite song might be Compromise or Be a poet about it –

“Just be a poet about it, Fall down on your knees,
Be a poet if that’s what you claim to be,
Be a poet outside of your sad poetry”.

To all the singer songwriters, new and old, I would like to petition you all to find a stage I can sit in front of and for you to play your guitar, just you and your guitar. Then I’ll buy your cd’s and forgive the artistic flairs (and experimental …oboe) because I’ll have the memory of just you and your guitar to warm the deeper parts of my soul.

Edie was phenomenal and I was drawn to her self-effacing humor and moments where she slipped into the ‘Jewish mother’. There was something equally sweet in the way her tongue pressed against her front teeth making a cute lisp in the more natural pattern of her speech. I’m a sucker for things that women do with their mouths.

By the time Melissa took the stage, the crowd was peaceful and patient. She managed to break a string in the first two lines of the song. And then broke another before the end. She remains the most efficient artist at changing broken strings, tuning and singing in the space that most artists have plucked the broken pieces and is still unwrapping the new one from its package.

That’s not her greatest talent though. It could be driving the strings with one hand while finessing the chords with the other. It could be in the way her hips drive in equal rhythm like good sex. Or it might be the way she has sex in her song Drive, sharing what moves her and how she moves other people. This rests in my top five sexist things I’ve seen a girl do with her guitar and her voice. Top Five! And don’t ask her to play this at your local folk festival or moan when she doesn’t. As she said tonight, there’s a place for it, just like there’s a place for it, and tonight in a bar full of women it was the place for it.

I’m on a nice little music high and I am losing my voice. If you are in Austin on Saturday or Houston on Monday, I encourage you to check them out.