<- read -> part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7

<- listen -> With Our Hands Violenty

<- watch -> part 1 part 1(high) part 2 part 2(high) part 3 part 3(high) part 4 part 4(high) part 5 part 5(high) part 6 part 6(high) part 7 part 7(high) hands hands(high) violenty violenty (high)

The Long Road to Stardom
I was not at all precocious, no - I started really late. I didn't write my first song until I was 20, I guess officially, where I actually wrote a full song from beginning to end. I started playing guitar at age 19, at the end of my freshman year in college. So I hate [teenage guitar whiz] Shannon Curfman…she makes me feel pathetic and sad. Actually, I think she's amazing. So it was a late process. But then I kind of went into overdrive, and then it's kind of been nonstop since then. I'm 26 now, so it's been six very full years.

I went to a really crazy high school - it was very busy, I had so many other things going on. I was singing like crazy, I was singing in every a cappella group, and every band and every band situation there was at school. So I was feeling fulfilled that way -- I was constantly performing, and I was doing plays and musicals, so it didn't feel like there was a lack of music in my life. And then I was singing privately; I was singing classical music, which wasn't really my thing. I mean I loved it and thought it was beautiful when other people sang it, but not when I did it -- it didn't do a whole lot for me. So by the time I got to college, all of a sudden… I so wanted to sing, and I was singing in an a cappella group to get the performance thing happening - I feel really sad when I don't perform - but by the time I got there, all of a sudden I had my own time. I was like, "Oh my god. I go to class a couple of hours a day and I have a lot of work to do, but now maybe it's time for me to start finding new ways to express myself musically." And it then was at the end of my freshman year that I decided to stop singing classically and buy a guitar and finally decided that maybe I could make music without 12 other people there.

Influences
Seeing other people play guitar, I just thought it was really cool. I always wanted to play piano and I thought it was beautiful, and in many ways I feel like piano may be better suited to my voice; a lot of people have said that to me. I don't know if that means, "Stop playing guitar!"[laughs]. I would love to learn that at some point. But mostly just seeing people play guitar - I thought it was so incredible what you could do with six strings… it's pretty amazing how you could make this instrument sing. Whereas a piano, you have all these keys, and there's a set amount, but [with] the guitar, it seems like the possibilities are kind of endless, with different tunings. And that sort of intrigued me; how you look at a guitar and you have no idea what kind of sounds you can really make with it.

And then I saw people my freshman year -- I saw Ani DiFranco play, and I saw Ellis Paul, and great songwriters, Buddy Mondlock, and Catie Curtis, and people like that -- who were doing it solo. I had just had no idea of that kind of…that part of the music scene. It was like you play at weddings, or you were Madonna or Sting; I didn't know anything about the middle part. And then I started seeing people in New York City, and they were so accessible. I would see Lisa Loeb, I kind of followed her all over town - "Hi, it's me, I'm stalking you again (laughs)." It just seemed like an easier way to do it. And I was thinking as a way to tour, having a guitar is a lot easier…well, I didn't think it through all that much, but I guess maybe that's why I was drawn to it.

Playing Out

Edie Carey & Live from New York Boat Cruise Edie Carey Fans - Edie and her fellow Live from New York crew -- Teddy Goldstein, Anne Heaton, Andrew Kerr, and Sam Shaber - are inviting you to join the Live From New York (LFNY) Fan Cruise aboard Carnival Cruise Lines' Fascination. The cruise runs January 4-7, 2002. For details, visit Edie's website (http:www.ediecarey.com), or the tour company's site (http://www.belairtrav.com/lfny.htm). If you have questions or would like to make a reservation, email lfny@fanclubcruises.com or call 800-638-0827. Special bonus for bookings made before July 31, 2001.

I guess I knew I wanted to do this when I first played in front of people who actually spoke English. I should clarify - I lived in Italy for a year, and that's where I got comfortable playing in front of other people. I started writing songs when I was away during my junior year in college with some regularity, and then I went out and starting trying out those songs out in front of people on the street in Italy - it was a safe place because they didn't know what I was saying (laughs). So I felt OK about that. And then when I got back I had one more year of school, and I played for people on campus and did a lot of coffee house kinds of things and played at frat parties - a perfect place for folk music! - and it just went from there. And people kind of responded to it. I was like, "God, this is crazy!" I'd never had that experience. I had always had been singing, but it was really different to sing your own music, because I think a sense of honesty comes across, or a reality, or some sort of truth comes across when you're singing your own music that maybe people were responding to more than they would if I were singing…Cher, for example.

It was kind of gradual. I think by the end of my senior year, after I'd played maybe five gigs, I kind of felt like, "I don't know if this is what I want to do for my life, but when I get out of school I want to make more time for it." Which meant getting a nine-to-five job at a magazine and at night, trying to play and write as much as I could, and playing one gig a month. And it just kind of went from there. I want to do it as along as it makes me happy. It is hard - it's very exhausting, I'm tired all the time. But I also am energized by the feedback that I get, and the people that I meet, and I love to travel, and that's kind of what it's about.

Building a Career
I think about the kind of career I want to have and the kind I don't want to have, and I think the kind of career I want to have requires has a lot of patience. And a lot of letting things be how they are. A career that really inspires me is Shawn Colvin's. I feel like if you ask Shawn Colvin, she'd probably say, "I'm so sick of this, it took me until I was 41 to have a hit." I mean, she won a Grammy in '90 or'91 for Steady On, but nobody knew who she was at that point. People in the industry knew she was great, but people in the mainstream didn't. And she just toured her butt off and made her name known to so many people, who then became such loyal fans. And she was never going to lose them if she didn't get a hit -- I mean, she never had a hit. So her career to me is really one that is exactly what I would want. I think Shawn Colvin in many ways could still walk down the street and have nobody know who she is if they don't specifically know her music. And a lot of people still don't know her name. But enough people who really care about that kind of music know her name.

And then it also reaches the 12- and 13-year-olds, whose tastes constantly change. But I'm not at all interested in getting the big hit and then disappearing. If that does happen -- if for some reason the stars align and there's a radio hit-I want to be good enough in my art to back it up with something, and I haven't been doing this that long. So I want to make sure I have something solid to back it up with. And I think that only comes from years of work, and writing and touring and life experience. I'm only 26 -- there's a whole lot more to come. I want to be making music for a long time, and I want to be doing it in a sane, kind of healthy way, and it's OK with me not to be hugely famous.