Emily Scott Robinson hails from North Carolina, but most of the time, she’s a long way from there.
In her tenure as a touring musician she’s traveled over a quarter million miles in the RV that she’s proclaimed home.
Since celebrating the release of her first studio album, Traveling Mercies, in February, Robinson has garnered attention nationally for her acute storytelling sensibility, drawing comparisons to Flannery O’Connor from Rolling Stone, who named her one of their 10 New Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know this winter.
Of her songwriting style, Robinson notes, “To me, it's all about storytelling and channeling the full spectrum of human emotion through characters.” She crafts her songs with an unflinching honesty.
Fans of Portland local Anna Tivel will appreciate Robinson’s ability to peel back the layers of modern life and peer into the stark reality of human existence.
Of the song “Overalls,” performed at The Rye Room, Robinson says, “[it] came from a friend of mine whose father was a war veteran and, after his service, he came back home to Tennessee and became a rural mail carrier for the US Postal Service. He carried the mail for decades. Everyone in the county knew him. When he got sick, he asked to come home from the hospital and be in his own bed, surrounded by his family. He was buried in his overalls with a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and his work pen. I think we all know a man like that from the "Greatest Generation," and I wanted to honor his memory, and the memory of a generation, with this song.”
