Rorey Carroll comes back to Coast

Rorey Carroll comes back to Coast - A woman smiling for the camera - Joni Mitchell

Songs of the siren

Rorey Carroll is a lyrical modern siren. She is the mesmerizing image and sound of legendary guitar-strumming, long-haired Joni Mitchell, combined with the bandit ways and humor of actress Mary Louise Parker.

Carroll’s musical evolution reads like a Kerouac novel. She has ridden the rusty rails and seen the other side of the law. For the 32-year-old Nashville singer/songwriter, the result is musical poetry. Rolling Stone included Carroll’s second album, “Love is an Outlaw,” as one of “15 Great Country and Americana Albums You Didn’t Hear in 2016.” And now is your chance.

Carroll will be returning for an encore performance at Coast on Stock Island Feb. 25 highlighting her latest album,

“When Rorey took the stage in November the crowd fell in love with her at first sight,” said Coast owner Billy Kearins. “She really captured the audience from the opening chord,” and he immediately invited her back.

“My sound is Americana folk with some rock ’n’ roll infusion,” said Carroll. “I’ve been a bit of a gypsy so I like drifter lyrics.” Leaving her middle-class Chicago roots by age 19, Carroll hiked the Appalachian Trail alone, jumped box cars around the U.S., got busted for transporting marijuana and played music everywhere she could. From the streets to dive bars, Carroll picked up a guitar and learned folk and bluegrass music from anyone and everyone. Her mentor is the famed Todd Snider, whom she played with at Coast.

Carroll writes her own music and arrangements, which are both haunting and humorous. She often draws from the same sense of love, loss and irony young poets often lament. With a soothing and seductive voice, she weaves songs like her latest hit “Love is an Outlaw” capturing love’s irony:

“It doesn’t keep quiet, it doesn’t know how to act,

It is as awkward as a teenage boy who just came in his pants,

I hope it lasts with you, I do

I hope we pass on through the blues…”

It’s easy to fall in love with her voice, and better still her stories.  As Carroll sings, “You can’t give it up for anyone, I am holding out for love-

I only want it if it’s good, and just not good enough…”

Not a concert to be missed.

 Rorey Carroll Live at Coast

Feb 25 at 8 p.m.

Tickets available at coastprojects.com

 I don’t want to pigeonhole myself—so my music is a mixture of folk, Americana, bluegrass, country—it’s all in there.    Rorey Carroll, singer/songwriter.

Hays Blinckmann is an oil painter, author of the novel “In The Salt,” lover of all things German including husband, children and Bundesliga. She spends her free time developing a font for sarcasm, testing foreign wines and failing miserably at home cooking.