Musician Caroline Herring tackles segregation

Kyle Ridley/For the News & Messenger
Published: April 17, 2008

Country-folk artist Caroline Herring is back with new songs and Southern Gothic tales from her long-awaited album, "Lantana."

The Mississippi-born musician showcases personal and often haunting new material from her first disc in nearly five years Friday at Jammin' Java in Vienna.

"It wasn't really deliberate," Herring said of the long gap between records. "I had two kids during that time, so that's a major effort."

"Lantana," Herring's third album (released in March on independent label Signature Sounds Records) and follow-up to 2003's "Wellspring," was recorded in Austin, Texas, and contains eight Herring originals and two traditional songs heavily influenced by race issues and her experience in the Deep South.

Herring merges personal experience and a storytelling approach in her songs, with many tracks covering her marriage ("Stone Cold World"), motherhood ("Lover Girl") and the tales of people she's encountered ("Fair and Tender Ladies").

"I prefer not to just lay my life out there on the table," she said. "At least the autobiographical songs are obscure."

On "Paper Gown," Herring explores the life of Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons in 1994 after her boyfriend rejected her "ready-made" family.

"Murder ballads are the ultimate tradition theme in my genre," Herring said about the track that took her two years to write.

Herring sings as if she were Smith, recounting the night of her children's death and the days leading to her confession. Herring considers the crime "the most horrifying tale there is," but found sympathy for Smith after she researched Smith's childhood and learned her father committed suicide and her stepfather molested her.

"It's no excuse, and yet I couldn't help but feel for her simply as a human being," Herring said.

"I watched my car sink silently/My lover's sweatshirt wrapped around me/On a black man I blamed the crime/With moans and screams and cries," Herring sings.

She said the track is "ultimately the story of race, and how white women in the South have always been able to use black men as an alibi."

"I grew up in a completely segregated place, except for our maid, and that is so cliché," Herring said of her childhood in Canton, Miss. "It dawned on me that something was so wrong."

She said many people fail to recognize problems with segregation because it is such a normal part of their lives, a theme that resonates in "Fair and Tender Ladies."

The song pays tribute to three Mississippi women—a poet, a nun and an anti-lynching activist, one of which, Thea Bowman, a black woman who lived and worked at a black Catholic Church just four blocks from Herring, appears in the second verse.

In the song, Herring tells of the segregation that prevented her from entering Bowman's church for 30 years.

"From sidewalks and handlebars/Summer sun and evening stars/And unincorporated streets/Oh, heroine, I long to meet," she sings.

Herring considers it a "jackpot" to be supported by a label that allows creative freedom and a manageable tour schedule. She said she loves performing but keeps her itinerary light for her children at home.

"I've found it is a complete nightmare for everyone concerned. I'm so worried about them (her children) and being their mother that I can't focus on stage," she said.

Herring said she's looking forward to her return to the Washington, D.C.,-area. She lived on Capitol Hill for a year in 2002 and has played Jammin' Java many times.

"I have some very fond memories," she said.

Herring said she does not foresee another long wait between albums. She's already written a batch of new songs she plans to record later this year for an early 2009 release.

"My goal is to get back on the map," she said.

WANT TO GO?

What's up: Country-folk singer-songwriter Caroline Herring perform

When: Friday at 7 p.m.

Where: Jammin' Java, 227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna

Tickets: $12 on JamminJava.com or call 703-255-1566, Ext. 8

Info: JamminJava.com