MAYBE IT’S HER DOWN-EAST RETICENCE, but it’s hard to explain why we don’t know more about Carol Noonan by now. Funny thing is, she grew up in Peabody and attended New England Conservatory (which may account in part for her ravishing alto voice). In the early nineties, her folk rock band Knots and Crosses sold over 20,000 records on an independent label and grew to be a New England phenomenon. But after a brief fling with Island Records the band and the label went their separate ways. Noonan’s three records for Rounder — “Absolution,” “Noonan Building and Wrecking,” and “The Only Witness” — were critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful. Despite a 1993 Boston Music Award for Best Female Vocalist, as well as several other nominations, Noonan looked back at more than a decade on the music scene and watched her career decline.
Nor were things so good at home in Maine. Her husband Jeff’s business fell on hard times with the rest of the New England fishing industry, and Carol had no choice but to put down her guitar and work two jobs to help hold on to the family farm. But the wheel keeps turning; Jeff bounced back, and so did Carol, on her own record label, with the help of the Internet. Her album “Self Titled” garnered both critical acclaim and a national audience. Her most recent album, “Big Iron,” fulfills a long-standing dream. It’s a beautiful record of American traditionals, cowboys songs, and a few originals revisiting the theme of the gunfighter, played with a modern yet hauntingly familiar feel. Don’t miss this cowgirl from Peabody, Mass. and Brownfield, Maine when she ties up at the Me&Thee.
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Carol Noonan seems to exist beyond time. . . Noonan has forged a distinctive, dreamy style, that is as breathtaking as her rich alto voice. She sounds at times like a 90’s Sandy Denny, soaring into the heavens even as she hits you in the heart. Steve Morse, Boston Globe
Carol Noonan’s voice has an inescapable hint of sorrow that permeates the eleven songs on her album [“Self Titled”], and that hint is precisely what makes this album such a cathartic work. Five songs are her own. Four more are traditional. Richard Thompson’s “Devonside” and R. Hayes’s “Sonny” complete the set. Carol’s writing is quite fine. “Just Because,” a song about loss, and the murder ballad “Leather Gloves” are exceptional. The traditionals include “Open The Door,” “Unquiet Grave,” the mournful “John Riley,” with its happy O’Henry twist ending, and the mystical “Lagan Love.” The album is beautifully performed, a truly haunting experience. Michael Tearson, Sing Out Volume 44 #4
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