Loving and learning the piano as a young teen. Sneaking a radio into her bedroom at night to listen to rock music – which was forbidden in her house. The summers in Seattle training with her music teacher grandfather. Those first public performances at the Kaffeeklatsch in Huntsville Ala. as a nervous 16 year-old. Caroline Crawford is a product of her experience. Crawford has come a long way since the days when her piano-playing was an experience so personal that she shied away from ever performing for others. Tone deaf until her music skills only began burgeoning, her ailment led her parents to at least initially discourage her for pursuing professionally. Now Crawford’s haunting voice and piano evokes Tori Amos and Evanescence’s Amy Lee. Music is her passion, her conduit of self-expression. “I write about the things I can’t always talk about. I take it to the piano and hope I can be open enough to let the lightning come and shock the truth and all the emotion right through my fingertips and my voice.”
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.