Third time’s the charm for Adam Carroll
It was sometime during the summer of 1998 that Adam Carroll made his local debut at Threadgill’s World Headquarters for a songwriter’s night. Everyone was doing short solo sets, four or five songs each. Carroll, fresh off the bus into Austin, got up onstage as unrefined as any performer you will ever see – banging away on his guitar and singing with an authentic Texas twang that was just barely attractive. When he broke a string on his third song, the young singer-songwriter gave up, leaving the meager audience unsettled by the entire experience. It was an odd incident, made even more memorable by the path Carroll has taken since.
Today, nearly every time a critic turns on their computer to bang out a few bons mots about the mild mannered Tyler native, they compare him to such revered songwriters as John Prine and/or Townes Van Zandt. Carroll can’t be that good, can he? Two or three spins of his new album, Far Away Blues, should be enough to convince listeners that he’s at least on the right trail.
In person, Carroll’s slight but wiry, with a shock of light brown hair and steel gray eyes. He’s sporting a few days’ growth on his boyish face, yet always maintains the personable and polite air of a proper Texas gentleman.
“I just turned 30 in March,” he says by way of introduction, then adds with a sly smirk, “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
Carroll grew up in East Texas, and though he had an interest in writing and music, he didn’t marry the two until he hit his 20s.
“When I was in junior college,” he says, “I was taking guitar lessons and creative writing courses, but I had never had the skills to make either of those successful by themselves. Right around that time, I heard Robert Earl Keen and Guy Clark. I enjoy creative writing, but songwriting seemed a lot easier. With fiction, a lot of times you end up sounding like another person, not yourself.”
A 1998 song swap in Archer City with then fledgling Texas music maverick Cory Morrow presented an opportunity called Austin.
“Cory was looking for a roommate,” recalls Carroll. “I had no idea what I was getting into, but it sounded like a good idea and I moved here. It turned out to be a little more than I bargained for. I was opening shows for him on Sixth Street, but I couldn’t seem to get any gigs on my own and even he said that I was probably missing my audience by playing to his. So I moved south, to Wimberley.”
He’s now out of San Marcos, but the moving and associated upheaval made it difficult for him to write songs. His first two albums, 1998’s South of Town and 2000’s Lookin’ Out the Screen Door, both produced by musical guru Lloyd Maines, were comprised of songs he had written in his early years.
“It took me awhile where I felt like I had a space where I could write,” he nods. “So, yeah. My dry period lasted about five years.”
While not a concept album, Far Away Blues, also produced by Maines, is a meditation on family. Carroll’s is a musical one, including his grandfather Ray Davidson, who played saxophone for Gene Krupa before taking on choir director duties at his church. Davidson makes an appearance on Far Away Blues. One thing that differentiates Carroll from other writers and leads to comparisons to Prine and Van Zandt is his ability to balance the contemplative with the playful.
“I got to thinking about the way my family connected through music and the way music connects us all,” explains Carroll. “It’s loosely based on my life, but it’s not all true. There are true feelings, but if something’s too true, it’s not always the best story.”
One of his truest experiences was a traveling songwriters show he was involved with, the Four Corners of the Round Table, which included Beaver Nelson, Steve Poltz, and Scrappy Jud Newcomb.
“That’s probably my favorite part of what I do these days,” says Carroll, eyes alight, “travel around and hear different people’s stories. I remember all of them or at least the parts I want to. Lloyd said he didn’t think I could get any better, but I could be different. I think that listening to all kinds of songwriters and traveling and stuff gave me a new perspective on things.” 
Ana Egge and Adam Carroll split a bill at the Cactus Cafe Wednesday, June 15.
This article appears in June 10 • 2005.