Folksinger Tracy Grammer has lots of reasons to look forward to Saturday’s show at The Blue Door.
Some are small. “I hope the ‘other’ Tracey Grammer will show,” she said. “There’s someone in Oklahoma City who has my same name and we have so many things in common, it’s not even funny. It’s like we have a parallel existence.”
Others are bigger, like bringing the legacy of her deceased musical partner, Dave Carter, back to where he grew up.
“Dave was an Oklahoma boy,” Grammer said. “It feels good to bring this music back to his roots.”
Grammer has made it her mission to spread Carter’s music since his fatal heart attack in 2002, using her voice to help crowds remember his. Having toured with Joan Baez, the two were a promising folk duo, and Grammer has since recorded and released many of Carter’s unfinished songs, putting his creative pursuits in front of her own.
“It seemed fitting to carry the songs forward,” she said. “It was my dream that more people would know his songs. It actually wasn’t a big shift, and I was doing what I had been doing. Dave just wasn’t there in the passenger seat. I had to do it by myself.”
What should mark the last of Carter’s unheard music is this year’s Little Blue Egg, which is composed of recordings she only recently uncovered in her basement.
“At the first listen, I felt very still on the inside and a little stunned,” she said. “I knew I had the tapes, but I didn’t really know where or what was on it. I was overjoyed, but also heartbroken. It was a bittersweet thing, because it made me miss him. It was hard to hear his voice again.”
As they have with all the other posthumous releases, fans are in awe with the talent lost too soon.
“They’ve been amazed, as they should be,” Grammer said. “To have new music from him a decade after his death feels, well, it’s not a miracle, but it’s a little miraculous and magical.”
This summer marked 10 years since Carter’s passing, and with that milestone and Little Blue Egg behind her, Grammer finally is focusing on herself, celebrating the small joys after completing her big mission.
“It feels good to me. This collection is pretty much the last of the recordings that are fit to release, so it feels like a threshold moment,” she said. “Everyone is celebrating the anniversary and what would have been his 60th birthday, but it also feels like the time to start shifting the focus. We’ve given this a 10-year push. Maybe it’s time to make my own music.”
This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2012.