Adam Carroll, a singer-songwriter-guitarist-harmonica-player, is more of a mild-mannered sort of guy. Perhaps the kind who would stop and smell the roses, which would make sense for Carroll, who grew up in Tyler, a town with a festival, parade and museum devoted to roses.
Carroll, who now calls San Marcos, Texas, home, traces his inspiration to his college years in Tyler, when he studied classical guitar, although he says he wasn’t very good at it.
“But I enjoyed it,” he says, “and I also took an elective in creative writing and it just floored me. I felt I’d found the place I belonged. I wrote poetry, stories and songs, and I had grown up always making up stories. My dad had a collection of Texas music and John Prine records, and through listening to him, I started wanting to write songs.
“I was heavily influenced by John Prine - the way he wrote about regular people and how he made amazing pictures in my mind with his stories. I also tuned into Robert Earl Keen, plus Bob Dylan, Neil Young and a couple of Texas guys, Butch Hancock and Terry Allen. I toured Italy with Terry.”
His first steps toward his own musical career came when he entered a songwriting contest at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas. From that, he moved into gigs opening shows for established artists and began touring Texas, gradually expanding into Europe, the rest of the United States and Canada (where he found his wife, Christian, herself a singer-songwriter who may open Carroll’s show at the White Water).
Before he moved to San Marcos, he lived in Austin until he met Texas singer-songwriter Terri Hendrix, who was so fond of San Marcos that she convinced him to move there. Before long, he met Lloyd Maines, a legendary producer (and the father of Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines), who heard Carroll at a festival.
“He heard me play and liked my stuff,” Carroll says, “and he produced my first album, South of Town, in 1998.”
Since then, Carroll has released six more CDs and collaborated with a musical friend, Michael O’Connor, with whom he sometimes tours. Owen Temple, another friend, is also an occasional touring partner. Carroll and Temple once performed at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack. Since then, Carroll figures he has returned to central Arkansas and performed about nine times at the White Water Tavern.
One of Carroll’s best known songs, “Screen Door,” is also the title of his second album. Carroll says he wrote the song when he was ailing, so he’s not sure which parts are real.
“I don’t always know which songs are true or false or half made-up,” he says. “I would say my favorite song I’ve ever written is ‘Errol’s Song,’ about a hunting trip I took with a rice farmer in south Louisiana. It’s the closest to a real person song I’ve ever written.”
Adam Carroll
9:30 p.m. Friday, White Water Tavern, West Seventh and Thayer streets, Little Rock
Admission: $5 (501) 375-8400
whitewatertavern.com
Weekend, Pages 36 on 04/18/2013