On May 16, singer-songwriter Edie Carey will make her Steve’s Guitars debut as she performs in Carbondale for the first time. Based in Colorado Springs and having been influenced by a plethora of singer-songwriters in her hometown of Chicago, Illinois, Carey brings a sound all her own to the genre of folk which is sure to help those listening find comfort in a world that seems so chaotic. 

“I never feel like a song is truly done until it is shared with an audience, because they are the other half of the equation,” Carey told The Sopris Sun. “You sing the song and it goes out to a certain space in front of you, and then the song is complete when each person takes their own life experience and steps inside the song.”

She continued, “The song gets to be like a prism or a reflective mirror of where they are in their lives, in their own individual. So the song sort of becomes like a million different things to whoever happens to hear it. That has to happen in the gathering together that you do at a live show.”

In listening to any of Carey’s 12 records from the past 27 years, audiences can expect to be taken on nostalgic journeys through songs that tell the stories of childhood, love, loss and grief, reflection and growth. She is currently touring two of her most recent records, “The Veil,” released in 2022, and “Lantern in the Dark: Songs of Comfort and Lullabies,” which she released as a collaborative project with fellow musician Sarah Sample in 2024.

In the title song for the 2022 record, Carey captivates the listeners with her visual and poetic descriptions of memories she shares. In the opening line she sings, “We thought that we could catch the moon, In the window of the way back, Diamond stars on velvet blue, In the window of the way back, Daddy carried me to bed, my arms heavy round his neck, If I wasn’t sleeping, I’d pretend.”

The song goes on to paint a picture of a mother and her child and how there are moments she wishes she could relive but can no longer now that her child is getting older. It’s a bittersweet ballad which is sure to leave folks reminiscing.

Carey drew inspiration from many artists, including Jeff Buckley, Sarah McLachlan, Shawn Colvin and the Indigo Girls. She expressed gratitude to these artists for helping her to figure out her own sound as she has navigated her career over all these years. In addition to these artists, some of whom she has opened for in the past, Carey said she first found true inspiration from a concert she and her third grade class performed.

“One of my best friends when I was growing up had this incredibly soulful voice, one of those voices that just gave you goosebumps the minute you heard it. I remember sitting in school assembly, and she got up and sang a Whitney Houston cover. I had chills kind of up and down my arm, and I had tears in my eyes,” Carey recalled. “I think that was the first time that I was like, ‘Oh my God. She’s just singing and it’s eliciting this strong emotional reaction.’ I think this sort of light went off in me that was like, ‘I want to make people feel that way when I sing.’”

Discussing her upcoming performance at Steve’s, she said the venue came on her radar because a number of friends in the local music scene had raved about their own performances there. When she reached out to the staff, she said she felt confident in the success of the show due to how easy they were to work with.

“Anytime I asked friends about it, they raved about it and how it’s like a marriage between a really sweet, formal listening room merged with the intimacy and connection you get at a house concert. Ralph [Pitt] and I had the most hilarious exchange back and forth, which is often not the case with a lot of venues. He heard a lot of the influences in my music of artists he’d worked with over the years. It makes me that much more excited to go and experience the crew there in-person,” Carey shared.

For more information on Edie Carey, visit www.ediecarey.com

To purchase tickets for this and other shows at Steve’s Guitars, visit www.stevesguitars.net