Mothers of Texas: Connie Carll

Hayes Carll’s mom talks about the Austin-based singer-songwriter.

By Leah ScarpelliMay 3, 2016 10:03 am

The Standard interviewed mothers of famous Texans for Mother’s Day 2016.

Hayes Carll told his parents he wanted to be a singer-songwriter right after graduating from college. His mother, Connie Carll, says at that time both she and her husband simultaneously asked “Son, can you sing?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Hayes said.

Connie says Hayes’ music is imbued with a lot of his own life she thinks he isn’t aware of.

One example: his song, ‘Down the Road Tonight.’ There’s one line in particular Connie points to. “Hare Krishna feed me chicken.”

“I know that when he was very young we ran into a group of Hare Krishna on the beach and they were coming up the hill offering us fried chicken,” Connie Carll says. “He doesn’t remember that but he wrote that line in his song.”

Connie says she’s proud to have raised Hayes. Her very favorite Mother’s Day gift from him was something he sent her when he was a freshman in college.

“I received a sheet of paper that he had pulled out of an art pad,” she says. “He had used colored chalk and drawn flowers around the border, and then he had written a verse. The verse is: ‘When I look inside myself, deep into my soul to see what is truly there, I see laughter. I see adventure. I see a performer. I see an argument. And I see that what I am, what I have been and what I will always will be, I learned from my mother. For that and everything else I love you always, Hayes.”

Prepared for web by Beth Cortez-Neavel.