CAMILLA PRESS
PRESS QUOTES FOR CAMILLA
*Creative Loafing Atlanta – Five star review
*Songlines UK - Five star review
*Maverick UK - Five star review
"As a singer, Caroline Herring's deeply beautiful voice sets her apart. And her songwriting is just as distinctive. "Camilla", Herring's latest collection of songs, combines these gifts to present an artist who is fearless and uncompromising in her work. As a witness, a historian, a truth teller, a gypsy, a mother, a sister, a lover, Herring takes the listener on a journey with her head and her heart, and there is no more enlightening experience one could have." Mary Chapin Carpenter
“An accomplished American song portrait of ‘injustice, despair and hope,’ past and present…With music of this caliber, she’s going to be a name to be reckoned with for a long time to come." Jeremy Searle, Maverick Magazine UK
"Herring is a magnificent storyteller, a master of the painterly detail, but she never gives it all away. There are enigmatic spaces in her songs that work like magnets, drawing the listener deep into her tales of hardship, history, perseverance and celebration. These shows spotlight the Decatur resident’s new album, “Camilla,” her sixth release. It’s another stellar beauty from an artist who gets better with each passing year." Shane Harrison, Atlanta Journal Constitution
This latest installment from Caroline Herring is the yet another brick in that now towering canon of songs, songs that are creating a folktale mythology of rich and vibrant characters who are struggling through hardships with amazing fortitude. It’s great to watch it grow. Tom Speed, PASTE Magazine
Caroline Herring's "Camilla" bests captivating interpretations ("Black Mountain Lullaby") with elegant ("Summer Song") and energetic originals ("Joy Never Ends")...a seamless new collection... Brian T. Atkinson, Austin American-Statesman
"Charged literary folk music." Jim Caligiuri, Austin Chronicle
“Camilla, the latest album by Caroline Herring, one of the very finest singer-songwriters to emerge from the American south in the new millennium, is a beautiful, often profound, meditation on such themes as the civil rights movement, grief, and hope.” Mike Regenstreif, Folk Roots/Folk Branches
“With each successive release, Herring confirms her standing as a true folk visionary.” (5 out of 5 stars) James Kelly, Creative Loafing Atlanta
Though she has traveled from China to the Netherlands to England and all across the United States with her music, it is the life and history of the American south that forms the warp and weft of Herring’s music. Kerry Dexter, USA Today Travel, Lonely Planet
“Caroline Herring proves she is not just an extraordinarily gifted singer songwriter but an incredibly inventive woman at bringing back to life the human spirit of the characters she raises from the past... The ability to convey such emotion so sincerely in a song is surely the goal of most singer songwriters. Camilla marks the milestone of one reaching it.” Folk Radio UK
"These are all original songs, laced with powerful imagery and dramatic juxtapositions…The performances have a compression of urgency and belief laced with folkloric scenes and images, perhaps drawn from Herring's studies in the anthropology of the American South and her remolding of its old- and new-world song traditions…Full of imagination, historical matter and emotion, there's not a duff song here, and with beautifully lyrical performances throughout, Camilla looks to be an original folk classic.” Songlines UK
"As topical as the songs come off, these aren't protest songs in the history of protest music. These are just stories about real people struggling, failing, succeeding, and just getting by - the kinds of songs Woody Guthrie might be writing these days, in other words." Linda Fahey, Folk Alley
“Caroline Herring is one of our country's best singer-songwriters… In songs that deal with injustice, kindness, struggle, and compassion, we are swept along on a turbulent yet beautiful journey…” Still Journal
“This young lady has already carved her own niche in the world of music. She's a critic's favorite and her music has popped up in some rather prestigious places. Camilla will no doubt fan the flames of her career even higher as this ten track album probably captures this captivating young artist at the zenith of her career.” Babysue
“Drawing inspiration from American history to the fiction of Eudora Welty, Caroline Herring delivers a set of compelling songs on Camilla. Tom Wilk, Icon Magazine
"Camilla, to be clear, does not seek to recreate (Golden) Apples, except to the degree that one can comfortably begin to characterize Herring as a Judy Collins for the 21st century. This is Collins the folk singer, not the chanteuse she would become, but undeniably the Collins whose profoundly informed musicality is a central fact of her identity, to be recognized by even the most casual listener. Herring, a Georgian, also is more specifically Southern, the product not only of Southern vernacular music but of regional literary strains: Lee Smith, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers." Rambles.net
“Merging her sense of time, temperament, and cultural memory with the powerful pitch and creative chords of imagination she has delivered to us this most literary new CD, Camilla. Telling someone about powerfully good new music is like trying to explain the feeling of love: just enter the room, breath and listen, take it all in. And then do it again. Play the songs, hear the words. Camilla will give and give again.” Tom Rankin, Center for Documentary Studies Porch
“Camilla is gorgeous. Hard-hitting throughout, Herring’s gentle and understated approach serves to frame difficult subject matter—civil rights, environmental ignorance leading to human disregard, innocence, war—with poetic imagery that should initiate an internal dialogue within every listener.” Donald Teplyske, The Lonesome Road Review
"Camilla" isn't a novel, and it doesn't tell a story, but it is nevertheless novelistic in that it presents a single, crafted work rather than being a collection of songs. Herring deals deftly and compellingly with a range of ideas with wit, skill and depth. She has said that "I feel braver on this album," and it shows. It's simply a beautiful, chilling and hopeful piece of writing and performance.” Glen Herbert, KDHX
“The simple fact is that Herring is one talented songwriter and has the vocals to move the listener.” Todd Godbout, MyJoog.com
“The first cymbal crash of the title song on Caroline Herring’s Camilla says settle in for some serious storytelling. Not to sell the old-time quaver in Herring’s voice short, but it really is the writing: “Camilla” is a first-generation civil-rights saga. Aoife O’Donovan and Mary Chapin Carpenter show up on “Traveling Shoes,” an a cappella retelling of a Eudora Welty story, softly suggestive of primitive hymns. Anyone who opens a song with “I’m 24 years old, I won’t live this way anymore” means serious business.” Mary Armstrong, Philadelphia City Paper
“This new Caroline Herring record Camilla is the best thing I’ve heard in awhile; maybe I’m biased cause I love her voice, music and spirit.” Craig Bonnell, Illinois Blogspot
"Caroline Herring has come a long way since the Austin Music Awards proclaimed her the best new artist back in 2002. In 2012, she made the list of the top 50 Texas singers of all time! For those who don’t know, she sings with a clear voice and a vibrato quaver that makes her the Joan Baez of country music. So why isn’t this woman a major star? The answer may lie with her gutsy determination to take on the big issues that modern country music buried under a mound of nostrums and slick production..." Off Center Views Four Stars
"Herring, I do believe, knows a thing or two about the hard-knock life, yet also knows the joys and sincere happiness of it too. You’ll find the best of both worlds on Camilla. Lindsey Borders, Guitar Girl Magazine
ARTICLES
USA Today
Folk Roots/Folk Branches
Folk Alley
Folk Music UK
Independent UK
Maverick Magazine UK – five star review
Creative Loafing Atlanta - five star review
Songlines Magazine UK – five star review