“The first time Abi Carter busked for tips at Palm Springs VillageFest, she knew how to play only 30 songs. At 16 years old, she camped out in a T-shirt and jeans on the corner of East Andreas Road and North Palm Canyon Drive with her piano and speakers, nervously belting out a rotation of throwbacks for passersby, from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
“I remember playing [those songs] on a loop for four hours straight,” the Indio native recalls over Zoom from her new apartment in Los Angeles.
In May, Carter returned to that very intersection — this time as a finalist on American Idol — where she met with fans and delivered a tearful speech. It was “a full-circle moment” for the songstress who once worried people would tire of her limited musical Rolodex (which, she points out, has vastly expanded since her street fair days)…”
[Read the full article at palmspringslife.com]