Carrie Marshall - Waves (2020)

An award winning songwriter and featured artist with the North Carolina Arts Council, Carrie’s original songs create a unique, signature sound that’s sophisticated yet accessible. Influenced by jazz, blues, gospel and Southern rock, Carrie “rewards listeners with eloquent compositions intertwined with cool phrasing, smooth vocals and a signature down-to-earth touch.” (Mooresville Weekly) Wrapping her heart and voice around a lyric, Carrie infuses each song with power and poignancy.

Born to a musical family, Carrie studied classical piano beginning at the tender age of 7. She was performing Mozart and other classical composers by age 9 at her local church where her father was the pastor and her mother was the choir director. Feeling somewhat encumbered as a child by having to play “only the notes that other people told her to”, she began writing her own compositions for fun, never realizing then where the journey would take her.

With a keen interest in musical theater, literature, and stories of all kinds, it was just a few years later that Carrie began adding lyrics to her music and a new love was born: songwriting. Carrie began performing her songs in college and soon was launched on stages across New England and the east coast. An experienced traveler (thanks to several moves around the country) as well as an observerof life and people, Carrie’s writing expressed everything from faith to simple stories of everyday life.

Carrie lived in Nashville for four years, which allowed her the privilege of fully studying the art of songwriting under the tutelage of world-class songwriters. In addition to working as a session singer herself and performing at many clubs across the city, Carrie also soaked in the educational songwriting opportunities provided by such reputable organizations as the Nashville Songwriter’s Association, BMI, and other songwriting professionals and producers Carrie met while living in Music City. During this season, she recorded and released her independent project, Redemption, garnering a semi-finalist award with the UK International Songwriter’s Competition for her song,“When Love Was Green”.

Carrie moved to North Carolina in 2008 and quickly adapted to her new musical home; singing and writing jazz and blues. By 2010 she had won singer/songwriter of the year from the NC Songwriter co-op for her vocal jazz original song, “Queen City”. By 2012, she was named North Carolina’s Top Charlotte Vocalist by the Carolina Entertainment Network. Carrie joined forces with several top musicians in the Carolinas, performing a blend of her jazz, blues, and original music in music festivals and events across the Carolina’s, including such notable events as the Democratic National Convention, Theatre Raleigh Songwriter Series, Knight Theater with the Tosco Music Party, The Blumenthal theater with Jazz Arts Initiative, Durham's Centerfest, and many more.

While in Charlotte she wrote and recorded her jazz inspired album of original songs, Home, working with legendary drummer and producer Jim Brock (Indigo Girls, Amy Ray, Kathy Mattea and many more) and released in 2013. Home features her song, “Thoughts Unspoken”, which also won the top Ten Finalist award with the UK International Songwriting Competition in 2014.

In 2015, Carrie moved yet again to Raleigh, NC, to become the music director, songwriting instructor, vocal coach, and company member at Moonlight Stage Company. In addition to building her classes and private lesson studio at Moonlight, Carrie has written and produced three full-length teen/family-friendly musicals with her songwriting students in 2017 and 2018, and has hosted several Cabaret and Songwriting shows at Moonlight’s black box theatre. She also composed and has been nominated twice for her musical score and theme song for the 11 time award-winning feature film, “Changeover” (currently on Amazon Prime), produced and directed by Moonlight’s founder, Estes Tarver. She won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the role of “Kacy Davis” in "Changeover" at the Love International Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2017.

In the fall of 2018 Carrie returned to the studio with producer/engineer Jason Richmond to record 20 new songs. These new tunes are a mix of new jazz and blues inspired originals and classic tunes, to be released over the next year and a half. The first release of new tunes has already begun, with a Holiday EP released digitally in Dec. 2018, Songs for Christmas, featuring a stellar band and Carrie’s signature bluesy/jazzy twist of favorite holiday standards.

Currently Carrie is putting the finishing touches on her blues album, Waves, to be released on February, 29th, 2020.