Barton Carroll
History:
"Love And War" is the second solo record by Barton Carroll.
Since 2002, Barton Carroll has toured and recorded extensively with Crooked
Fingers, playing guitar, steel guitar, and upright bass. Carroll has also
toured, playing various instruments with Azure Ray, Dolorean, and Micah P.
Hinson.
On "Love and War," Carroll creates characters who search for light in a
stark landscape, souls caught in the murky area between what appears to be opposing human extremes. Friends of Barton know about his near obsession with war and the effect it has on the civilian population. This collection of songs is a snapshot of Carroll's ongoing effort to find meaning in moral ambiguity and violence.
While writing and recording the album, Carroll drew greatly from the literature he was reading at the time. Books like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and Elie Wiesel's Night Trilogy weave themselves into the songs of "Love and War".
"Day on the Waves" tells the story of a teenage war refugee smitten by the beauty of a young woman as they sail toward a new life. In "Look Up, Look Down, That Lonesome Road," a traditional Appalachian ballad, a man says goodbye to his love for what he hopes will not be the last time. In "The Way Back To Her," an AWOL soldier escapes home to his love, but dreams nightly of his life on the battlefield. In the midst of his own compositions, Carroll puts his own spin on a cover of "The Dark End of the Street." A song that has resonated for decades, it finds a unique place on "Love and War."
The centerpiece of the album is the song, "Small Thing." Based on a book co-written by Carroll's mother, "Small Thing" tells the story of a young woman living in Berlin during the 1945 Soviet occupation.
In the tradition of Richard Thompson and Nick Cave, the music on "Love and War" is austere, and the lyrics are literary. And Carroll's dark wit is at its most sardonic. But his sincere, durable voice and melodic sensibility make the stories compelling and the record quite listenable.
"Carroll is long overdue for recognition of his own talents as a singer and a songwriter. He's hyperintelligent and hyperliterate, but his hushed and naked delivery of dour, country-tinged yarns is infinitely accessible and down to earth. Fans of Cormac McCarthy, take note."-The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Publicity Contact
Press Darling -Angie Carlson angie@pressdarlingpr.com
Website
www.myspace.com/bartoncarroll
bartoncarroll.com
Photo by Wes Frazer
Barton Carroll 
Barton Carroll