2001–2009: Early career In 2001
Chip Taylor asked Rodriguez to join his European tour after seeing her play with the artist Hayseed during
SXSW, which featured a showcase of artists of Hispanic ancestry. The list of performers was narrow in focus but inspired:
Carlos Santana,
Los Lobos,
Linda Ronstadt,
Gloria Estefan,
Jose Feliciano, and Carrie Rodriguez. TODO Austin called her the outlier, who was running "on the strength of a career only a decade old, [but] already so highly regarded that she's not only captured the heart of
Americana music aficionados but infused the Latino community with a singular dose of Ameri-Chicana pride." She recorded her first duet album, ''Let's Leave This Town
, with Chip Taylor in 2002 for Trainwreck Records. They toured extensively in Europe, performing on the TV show Top of the Pops as well as appearing on numerous BBC National Radio programs. Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez also appeared on NPR radio program, Weekend Edition, and appeared in a feature article in The New York Times''' "Sunday Arts" section in 2003. After four duet records with Taylor, she released her debut solo album,
Seven Angels on a Bicycle, on August 15, 2006. She released her second album, ''She Ain't Me'' on August 5, 2008.
Carrie Rodriguez Live in Louisville 2009, featured her opening set in Louisville while she toured with
Lucinda Williams. Carrie appeared on the Mountain Stage in Buckhannon, WV in 2008. She has performed as a solo artist on
Austin City Limits (2008). Her recent duo in We Still Love Our Country with Romantica lead singer
Ben Kyle went to the top 10 on the AMA radio charts in Feb 2011. Additionally, she has recorded and/or performed with
John Prine,
John Mayer,
Alejandro Escovedo,
Los Lonely Boys,
Bruce Hornsby,
Robert Earl Keen,
Los Lobos,
Patty Griffin. She has been interviewed and/or performed on the NPR radio programs:
Latino USA,
Mountain Stage,
A Prairie Home Companion, and
World Cafe. In August 2011 she toured the U.S. with
Jeff Bridges, with whom she also appeared on
Austin City Limits,
Today,
Live with Regis and Kelly,
The Colbert Report and
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
2012 and onward Carrie also helped co-produce the album
The Fantastic Expedition, by Erik & Sanne, released June 5, 2012, pulling together many Texas musicians, such as Earl Poole Ball (
Johnny Cash's piano player),
Lloyd Maines (father of
Dixie Chicks member
Natalie Maines), Luke Jacobs, and more. She even played fiddle on nearly every track for them.
Give Me All You Got contains a song called "I Cry For Love," of which Rodriguez said, "This was a true gift. It came from one of our greatest songwriters of all time, in my humble opinion, Chip Taylor. Chip, just out of the blue, sent me this song as an MP3 file in an email and said 'Carrie, I wrote this song for you. It's custom written and you better record it because I think it's a hit.' So I said ‘All right.' It's such a powerful song and I almost feel like I wrote it because I feel so close to it." Carrie Rodriguez says of her own musical influences, "Hopefully, a little of everything that goes into my ears influences what comes out. I’ve never been one to stick to any particular genre... whether it's sung or instrumental, written this year or 300 years ago, music with soul still moves me in the same way that it always did." Michael Bialas from the
Huffington Post noted that "Carrie Rodriguez just might be the hardest-working woman in American roots music.... That's not surprising coming from the adventurous Rodriguez, who seemingly is either always on tour or in the studio....
Give Me All You Got is an example of Rodriguez at her freewheeling best, an inspired mix of passion and energy that captures the spirit of her feel-the-burn live shows." ==Personal life==