Carson McHone {Singer-Songwriters}
Singer-Songwriters
Words by Jessi Devenyns Photos by Ashley Haguewood
“I guess I feel like I’m not a very good storyteller so instead I feel like I’m trying to capture scenes that people can relate to,” muses Carson McHone whose sophomore album just hit airwaves this past October. Her powerful voice can suddenly drop to a sultry whisper that sweetly draws fans into lyrics that demand full attention. Her songs are vignettes that grab anyone who listens into a moment in time capturing the reel of Carson’s imagination. Her songs swell and weave a passionate tale out of a moment. The idea, according to Carson, is to create a corkscrew of emotions that recreates for others the passion that she draws from music.
Surprisingly, for the young singer-songwriter, this zeal for music did not always come naturally. Although she grew up studying the classical Suzuki method on the violin she remembers, “I was not any good. I wouldn’t practice, and I wasn’t really into it.” It wasn’t until she met Darcie Deaville from the Austin Lounge Lizards who taught her Irish reels and Dixie Chick songs that she discovered was, “the spark that ignited my life in music.” Her introduction to the violin as a vehicle to express everyday moments quickly evolved into a love affair with performing, and Carson shortly thereafter picked up a guitar and began writing her own work.
By the time she was a junior in high school, she was performing every night at the Hole in the Wall on the Drag, crystallizing the sound that later established her as a figure at the forefront of a new generation of artists who coalesce roots music with pedal steel country beats. “I feel very privileged to have grown up in a place where young people were allowed to play music in bars and were encouraged to do so,” she remarks. As Carson’s career gains steam, she admits that songwriting has become more difficult. “I have difficulty writing on the road. It’s just something I’m going to have to figure out as I go,” she smiles.
For her, some of her best work comes out of moments with a hot cup of tea and a notebook in a quiet corner of her house. “I remember being in English class where my teacher said,’show don’t tell.’ You don’t want to tell people how it is, you want to show them.’ I think maybe all of me thinks that way when [I’m] creating,” she says wide-eyed. As a result of trying to draw her scenes with words, “I just have notebooks where I handwrite stuff…I end up writing and rewriting stuff over and over again.” Even if she’s not writing though, Carson explains that inspiration comes from all fronts – especially other genres of music. “I’m listening to all kinds of different music these days.” However, she allays any fears that her musical compositions will take a hard left turn. Folk music and bluegrass, Alison Krauss and Dr. Ralph Stanley, “that’s the stuff I [am] attracted to playing.”
Contact:
carsonmchonemusic.com
tim@ninemilerecords.com
