Nick Carter has been on a life-long journey across that rich and borderless landscape we call music. Since his school days, he’s been listening for those combinations of melody and story that draw out the singer and musician inside.  During his earlier years, music was his constant, many-faceted fellow traveler – whether in musical theater, ensemble performance, a cappella groups, folk/rock bands or in solo settings.

Nick’s companionship with music persisted throughout his years in business and marketing until it finally captured his full professional attention, when he ultimately turned to teaching music, spending 15 years conveying his love for the subject to his many students. It was during those years that Nick’s songwriting steadily emerged. In 2014 he said goodbye to the classroom, and focused on his own creative development.

These days Nick’s music imparts the stories of a man who has arrived at songwriting later in life and whose varied experiences give a knowing voice to his life-long love of storytelling through songs.  His new-found dedication to songwriting is the timely “next act” for someone who, over the years, was never far from a pen, paper or guitar. These days Nick packs those things wherever he goes.

“Carved in The Bark” is Nick’s latest release, and his second in collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer, Seth Glier. This collection is Nick’s most serious endeavor yet at capturing current-day concerns with lyrics and musical arrangements to match, reflecting his skills of observation and experimentation with new sounds.

Nick’s earlier album “Fountain Pen”, released in September, 2022, (also with Seth Glier as producer) drew praise from both folk radio and print media as an evocative, emotional collection, with several songs cited as “instant standards” and the title track as “a gem”.

“Carved in The Bark”, by its creative choices in addressing social and environmental issues, gratitude, reconciliation, old friends, not-quite-forgotten crushes and the universal love of Friday night, offers listeners a few minutes of satisfying distraction and richer evidence of Nick’s artistic reach.

A little not-so-ancient history

Nick’s musical life really began on Sunday night, February 9, 1964, when pop music in America changed forever. That night, over their weekly ritual of pizza and watching The Ed Sullivan Show, he and his family, like millions of other Americans, discovered The Beatles.

“I can still see the four of them on our small, black and white television screen.  They looked cool and sounded great.  I still remember “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.  What really got to me about that song was the bridge, and how the chords and their soft, long-short-long rhythm contrasted with the rest of the song.  Years later I realized I had fallen for that famous ii-V-I-vi chord progression. But to my fourth grader’s ears, on that night and every other time I listened that winter, it was pure joy. It was like nothing I’d heard before and all I wanted to do was play that song over and over and play along on my brother’s drums until I wore out the grooves on the 45.”

In the years to come, music would only become a deeper passion. Nick attributes this –especially his love and knowledge of Sixties music – to countless afternoons after school, listening to the hit singles his older siblings were always bringing home.

Nick occasionally takes time out from songwriting to study circle singing and vocal improvisation in a weeklong workshop under renowned jazz vocalist, Bobby McFerrin. Nick performs frequently for Musicians on Call, a national volunteer organization that offers live music to patients in New York area hospitals. He also serves on the Connecticut and New York area advisory boards for Music Will, the national music education charity that, since inception, has brought music instrument programs to more than 1 million students.

Nick and his wife, Sue, divide their time between Connecticut and Vermont.