Skip to main content

Bruce T. Carroll

Bruce T Carroll is happy to announce the release of his third album First Bird To Sing!
Recorded in the spring of 2021 at The Building in Marlboro, NY, with premier Hudson Valley sidemen Lee Falco, Brandon Morrison, Will Bryant and Connor Kennedy, First Bird To Sing is a collection of eight beautifully written songs that covers a varied stylistic ground. With the additional help of Bruce's perennial sidemen Sara Milonovich, Marc Shulman, and Tommy Mandel on violin, guitar and keys respectively, as well as contributions from saxaphonist Jay Collins and harmonica virtuoso Gary Schreiner, First Bird To Sing is a worthy successor to Bruce's first two highly-regarded albums Ruckus and Romance (2017), Finding You (2018), and his stirring single Lift Your Head Up (2020)

Three albums and one single in five years! Such prolific output is an indication that Bruce is trying to make up for lost time, and indeed he is. He spent fourteen years (1999-2013) operating the legendary Larchmont, NY music venue called the Watercolor Cafe, where he presented regional and national acts of great renown, as well as new and undiscovered acts that soon broke upon the national scene. While presenting great music in a beautiful club setting was a labor of love for Bruce, it often kept him from pursuing his first love and overriding passion: lyric songwriting. Since closing the Watercolor in early 2014, Bruce has had the time and headspace to plunge back into songwriting and performing, which had been on hold since his early days playing in the heady NYC music scene of the'70's and '80's.

With the release in 2017 of his first official album Ruckus and Romance, hailed by No Depression Magazine as "devilishly brilliant" and "intensely beautiful", Bruce T Carroll established himself as an Americana artist with a social conscience and deft lyrical touch. Using irony and imagery as tools in trade, and a band of great musicians to back him up (Clifford Carter, David Spinozza, Marc Shulman, Sara Milonovich, Tracy Grammer, Nicole Alifante, Porter Carroll, Lincoln Schleifer, and Joe Bonadio) Bruce made Ruckus and Romance a distinctive debut, and his song "When Two Worlds Collide" helped bring the worldwide refugee crisis into sharp focus. Ruckus and Romance garnered significant airplay worldwide, including being featured on WFUV's "On Your Radar" hosted by John Platt, who called it "an accomplished album, attuned to the zeitgeist of the moment".

Bruce followed up only one year later (2018) with the release of the six-song EP Finding You. The album is a sort of lyrical tone poem, with the theme of finding, or regaining, something that had been missing, or lost. What had been lost at that time, it seemed, was the very soul of the nation, mired as it was in the throes of right-wing governence that sought to undo a century of progressive gains. The signature song on the record, "Fox in the Henhouse" may still be Bruce's definitive statement on what was then the state of the union, and an apt description of the man (now deposed) who almost stole our democracy. Another song on the record, called "I Will Never Leave", is an anthemic statement of the intention to resist and, ultimately, to remain. Produced by Andy Stack, Finding You features stellar performances by Stack (guitars, bass, keyboards), Sara Milonovich (violin), Lee Falco (drums), Jeremy Baum (organ, accordian) Brandon Morrison (bass), and Adrien Reju and Melissa Ahern (vocals)...

In March 2020 Bruce released a powerful new song and video called Lift Your Head Up. It was, in essence, a call to action, a call to activism. A call to acknowledge the extreme and abject conditions suffered by so many in this world and a commitment to do something about it. It is a work that represents much of what Bruce has sought, through artful songcraft and powerful music, to convey to the world. As he releases his third album in the last five years, Bruce's belief that music and social conscience derive from the same wellspring of humanity continues to drive him forward.