https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2010-12-01/chip-taylor-carrie-rodriguez--encore/

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez - Encore!

By Margaret Moser, December 1, 2010, 12:32pm, Earache!

There’s nothing like old friends, and news that Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez were together again and performing at the Cactus Café tonight and tomorrow night is as good as anything on Santa’s list, which starts with their new CD The New Bye & Bye: The Best of The Trainwreck Years (2002-2007).

The duo – born when Taylor wandered into a SXSW 2001 showcase and happened upon Carrie Rodriguez wailing away on fiddle – burned through five years of partnership, one that capped Taylor’s lifetime of achievements (he wrote “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning”) and kick-started Rodriguez’s. The two singer-songwriters, decades apart in age but on the same musical page, found an affinity with one another; their first recording, Let’s Leave This Town, was one of the finest of the new millennium.

Taking time apart may have felt a little premature, but every song on The New Bye & Bye – the old favorites as well as the new offerings – was worth the wait. The break “allowed Carrie to establish her own identity,” which she did with three stellar recordings. Taylor, never one to let any blade of grass grow under his feet, likewise returned to the studio until it was time for the two to make music again.

“It was time for Carrie to do her own thing," Taylor adds. "I knew that and I supported that. I think we did the wrong thing, somewhat, not nurturing [ourselves] a little more as she broke on her own and went off to do other things. But the show we did when she had Seven Angels and I had my album out, that was wonderful because we were reliving Chip and Carrie stuff yet introducing the audience to new songs. It was short-lived, one month and it was over, but we could have played to sold-out audiences for another year.”

“Now, we get to, once again.”