And people will ask me often is that “you’re a musician, you make your life in sound, and you go to a silent Quaker meeting. Eventually I was doing a service semester for the college I was going to in Costa Rica, and I encountered the silent - unprogrammed Quakers there in Monteverde. But I was kind of raised, in a basic Protestant-Methodist church later on. So I think I’m the only like Italian-Amish person on the planet, I think.
And my father was raised Methodist, but his family background was Mennonite, Amish. She’s a first generation American from an Italian family. TIPPETT: As much as being a Quaker celebrity? I’m a Hoosier, which impresses people everywhere. NEWCOMER: Well, I was raised in Northern Indiana. So would you talk about what that was and how you came to this tradition. That wasn’t the religious background of your childhood. But, I wasn’t sure of this until I started to delve into this, that you weren’t raised Quaker.
I know, but people often, I notice that journalists often refer to you as a Quaker singer. It’s kind of a phrase that you don’t usually see paired together. CARRIE NEWCOMER: Well, I’ve never heard that before. You’re something of a celebrity in Quaker circles. It’s so wonderful to have Carrie Newcomer here. TIPPETT: So, welcome to On Being on Loring Park. I welcomed Carrie Newcomer and her guitar to the On Being studios on Loring Park in Minneapolis in 2014, before a live audience. TIPPETT: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. She’s also an interesting collaborator in writing and performance with author and educator Parker Palmer, novelist Barbara Kingsolver, and neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor. TIPPETT: Indiana-born and based, Carrie Newcomer has been called a “prairie mystic.” She’s best known for her story-songs like “Betty’s Diner,” that get at raw and redemptive edges of human reality. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: Today, a musical conversation with folk singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer.