Her tenth and latest album, Regulars and Refugees, is a follow-up to Betty's Diner-The Best of Carrie Newcomer. Newcomer has rerecorded the "Betty's Diner" track and used it as a centerpiece for the new album, which is populated with diners -- a gay pastor, a recovering addict, an abused housewife, a single mother, a redneck cook, a convenience store clerk working on a GED. The result is a painting of the American milieu that's anything but a folksy Norman Rockwell, although her characters are just as sympathetic.
A practicing Quaker, Newcomer combines artistic endeavor with political activism and spiritual enterprise. She is an artist in residence at Emory University's Candler School of Theology; since 1997, she has made a practice of donating 10 percent of concert album sales to charitable causes. Her current tour will support Second Harvest, the nation's largest food bank network.
