HAVE MUSIC, WILL TRAVEL: Maine folk artist to make Alaska debut in Talkeetna

WASILLA — Combine a powerful wanderlust with a meditative spirit and a passion for music and you’ve got Caroline Cotter, the Maine folk musician headed to Talkeetna this weekend.

Promoting her first solo album, “Dreaming as I Do,” with Anchorage songwriter Michael Howard, Cotter has 13 Alaska shows scheduled, beginning with the Denali Arts Council’s free “Live at 5” event at Talkeetna Village Park on Friday, July 22.

“I’m so excited,” Cotter said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Cotter said she’s never been to Alaska, and might not have made it to The Last Frontier if not for her musical success.

Since the beginning of 2015, Cotter has been touring the country playing music full time. In February her album reached no. 5 on the Folk DJ charts, and the song “Bella Blue” was the second-most played of the month. She’s sold 1,500 copies of the CD, and a shipment of 1,000 more came in this week, she said.

But Cotter’s dreams haven’t come true overnight, nor by hanging around her hometown her whole life.

‘Far from home / but comfy’

As a high school student, Cotter got her first taste of international travel on a church trip to Honduras for hurricane relief, which she called an “eye-opening experience” that made her “hungry for more.”

In college, she applied for just about every program, grant and scholarship that would allow her to go abroad.

“I just said yes to everything that came my way,” she said.

Cotter’s trips to Chile, in particular, were “really impactful,” she said, especially when she began to understand and be understood in Spanish. She was wooed by the people and their ways.

“I just loved the Bohemian, artistic culture that I found down there,” she said.

Upon graduating, Cotter continued to travel the world, primarily as an international educator for the Council on International Educational Exchange. She saw 28 countries on five continents, working in France, Portugal, Spain and Thailand, studying yoga in India and wandering South America for fun.

While those travels obviously shaped her as a person and influenced her music — two songs on the new album, “La Marionette” and “Il est jaune,” are written in French — there came a point where she knew she had to press pause to more actively pursue her passion for music.

“I just couldn’t sleep at night anymore and I knew I had to make a change,” Cotter said.

‘I chose music’

Ten years after she had graduated from college, Cotter quit her job and devoted her time to “Dreaming as I Do,” polishing the album until it was ready for an international audience.

“It was a project I was really proud of and had put a lot of work into, and I knew it wasn’t going to be possible to do as much with album as I wanted if I didn’t quit my job,” she said.

However, “not everybody needs to quit their day job to be a musician,” Cotter pointed out. She’d been writing, performing and recording songs between trips and work since 2007, finding a following as the lead singer of The Gather Rounders and C.C. and the Swingset — two other folk bands that are still active in Maine.

But for Cotter to fully commit to music, she had to prioritize between the dream and the job. When she saw it would be financially and professionally feasible to do so, she took the leap.

“I had to choose one and I chose music,” she said.

‘Take me far away but / bring me back again’

Maine is still Cotter’s home, she said, but she’ll go where the music takes her.

“I’m just really psyched to continue to tour with the album and share it with people far and wide,” she said. “I love to see the world and it’s cool to see that happen through music.”

For the next couple weeks, that “world” will be Alaska, including Anchorage, Denali National Park, Seldovia and Cooper Landing. She said she has some sightseeing planned, but will mostly play it by ear, with Howard as her guide.

“I’ll leave it up to the locals,” she said.

To learn more about Caroline Cotter, The Gather Rounders and C.C. and the Swingset, or to see a list of upcoming shows, visit www.carolinecotter.com.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.