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Caroline Rose On World Cafe

Caroline Rose.
Courtesy of the artist
Caroline Rose.

Caroline Rose joins World Cafe from the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Rose, whose new album is titled IWill Not Be Afraid, escaped the drug problems of her small Northeast hometown via higher education. Now, a self-described "failed scholar and a modern-day hobo," Rose — who lives out of her van — makes her living playing gritty folk, blues and country across the U.S.

Her journey has been filled with detours — work as a boat builder, farmer and grocery-store clerk — but as she said to NPR's Scott Simon in an interview earlier this year, "It just all ended up coming back to this [music]. It always comes back to the things that you really love."

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