Contact: Nicole McLeod
706-828-3815
nicole.mcleod@themorris.org

Singer/Songwriter Caroline Herring

To Perform at the Morris Museum of Art

Sunday, May 25 at 2:00 P. M.

AUGUSTA, GA—Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Caroline Herring—whose new CD was co-produced by Augusta-native Rich Brotherton, lead guitarist for Robert Earl Keen—will perform a free concert in the Morris Museum of Art auditorium on Sunday, May 25, 2008, at 2:00 p.m.

“Caroline Herring sings and writes with the truest southern voice I've ever heard,” said Rich Brotherton. “Though I grew up in Augusta and she in Canton, Mississippi, while producing her records I found myself constantly astounded by lyrics that spoke directly to some specific formative moment of my youth—‘How did you know about learning to drive on the graveyard streets?’ I'd ask, picturing Westover Memorial and my dad's yellow VW. Caroline plays and sings like an angel—definitely a show not to be missed.”

A native Mississippian, Caroline Herring attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where she played with a local old-time country and bluegrass band, The Sincere Ramblers. During this time, she also co-created the Thacker Mountain Radio Show, a literary and musical hour that was broadcast from a secondhand bookstore in Oxford. The show, which still airs on Mississippi Public Radio, featured such renowned musicians as Gillian Welch, The Bottle Rockets, and Peter Rowan. In 1999, Herring moved to Austin, Texas to pursue a doctorate in American Studies at the University of Texas. She began playing gigs around Austin and recorded her debut album, Twilight, in 2001. She quickly took the town by storm and was named Best New Artist at the Austin Music Awards during South by Southwest in 2002 and released her equally impressive follow-up album, Wellspring, in 2003.

Herring relocated to Atlanta in 2006 when her husband accepted a position on the faculty at Emory University; she lives there now with her husband and their two children. Her third album, Lantana, was released in March, and she is currently touring the United State and Europe. To sample songs from Caroline Herring’s latest CD, Lantana, visit her myspace page at www.myspace.com/carolineherring.

“We are just delighted to be able to bring Caroline Herring to the Morris and to Augusta,” said Kevin Grogan, Director of the Morris Museum of Art. “She has emerged as one of the leading figures in the roots music scene, and she has established herself as an important voice in American music, addressing serious contemporary issues in beautifully shaped music that is deeply rooted in a Southern acoustic tradition.”

Open to the public since 1992, the Morris Museum of Art is the oldest and largest museum in the country that is devoted to the art and artists of the American South. It is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and on Sunday, noon–5:00 p.m. For more information about the Morris Museum of Art, visit the museum’s web site at www.themorris.org or call 706-724-7501.