Caroline Herring, a 1999 graduate of the Southern Studies Program, launched her first CD, entitled Twilight, on the Blue Corn Music label. Herring performs often in her new home, Austin, Texas, and the Austin Chronicle recently named her the Best New Artist in its critics’ poll awards. Herring, who grew up in Canton, Mississippi, came to the University as an undergraduate, earning her bachelor’s degree and then returning to enter the Southern Studies graduate program. She wrote a master’s thesis on the Mississippi Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, drawing from history and documentary studies. She was a founding member of the Sincere Ramblers, a traditional/bluegrass Oxford band that performed on a late-night radio show from Blind Jim’s restaurant and then as the first house band for Thacker Mountain Radio.

After graduating, Herring moved to Austin, where she is a student in American Studies at the University of Texas and also works as program coordinator for the Texas Folklife Resources. She is a regular performer as well at Stubb’s Barbecue, a prime Austin musical venue.

Twilight contains 10 original songs, plus a cover of Roy Acuff ’s country music classic, "Wreck on the Highway." Herring’s own compositions reflect her feelings since leaving Mississippi and living in the vibrant musical scene of Austin. Mississippi references are throughout, as seen in such song titles as "Mississippi Snow" and "Delta Highway." One of the most evocative songs is "Standing in the Water," which ends with the lines, "goodnight cottonlandia/ get your ghosts off of me." Many of the lyrics deal with leaving a place you know and love. "Learning to Drive" ends with a narrator observing that the "pretty girl from a Delta town" is driving her U-Haul across the Mississippi River: "lanterns on the levee and a fist full of cotton/ old times there will not be forgotten." These songs are folkcountry, unsentimental, sharply observed, and often ironic.

Herring debuted her CD with a performance at Oxford’s Proud Larry’s last fall. She will be performing in Chapel Hill in March and will return to Oxford in late April as part of the Double Decker Festival. In considering her singing and songwriting success in Austin so far, one is reminded of a line from one song in this CD: "the Carolina moon is rising in the Texas sky."

CHARLES REAGAN WILSON