Sarah Jarosz is what happens when young women are taken seriously. A huge part of the mandolinist’s story is that she had supportive male mentors and that has added to her confidence. We all know the age old story of “Young woman shows promise, gets exploited by the patriarchy and it affects her work.” We need to hear stories like this. Starting in her hometown of Wimberley, Texas, just 45 minutes outside of Austin – the live music capital of the world – Sarah found the mandolin at 10 years old. Labeled a prodigy, and thanks to the encouraging spirit of folk music, she found mentorship with seasoned professionals like David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien and Béla Fleck. Following her time at The New England Conservatory of Music, she moved to New York and would go on to collaborate with people like Chris Thile in the Live From Here House Band and her trio I’m With Her, featuring Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, and won four Grammys.
After making the move to Nashville, on her latest album, the very impressive and sonically expansive Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz collaborated with producer Daniel Tashian, which originally was just a low-stakes co-writing project. The success of her first co-writing experience with Daniel led her to pursue other songwriting sessions with Ruston Kelly and Natalie Hemby. The collaboration found on the record has opened Sarah up to new sounds and new experiences. In our conversation, we talk about Sarah stepping into her own voice with confidence on this record and knowing her musical self enough at this point in her life. She describes her experience with confidence using the Dunning–Kruger effect, in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. AKA “fake it till you make it,” AKA “leap and the net will appear.” She also talks about her parents’ influence on her early musicality and how her mom is doing with her cancer remission. An overall theme of this conversation is that Sarah never lost sight of her goal: Keep it all about the music and don’t let noise get in the way of your important work.
Perspective. A universal concept, but also something which bears the potential to be entirely different from one person to the next. How one person views a setting, an experience – or even something as simple and innocent as a Polaroid picture – can set the tone for how they come to hold onto and look back on an entire memory.
The 11 songs on Polaroid Lovers, the seventh album from multi-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz, not only presents the bulk of its musical subjects from a variety of vantage points, but the very making of this record is a story built on a shift in perspective for Jarosz herself.
“World on the Ground was my first traversing into really working on songwriting as more of a storyteller and not necessarily always writing from my own perspective or writing my own story. Or, maybe a better way to say it would be, from a confessional kind of point of view,” says Jarosz. “I think that really carried over into [Polaroid Lovers] and was very much assisted by the people that I was co-writing with,” she adds. “And so I think by co-writing all the songs and by not being in a solitary mindset, I was able to more easily slip into trying to write the songs from a more universal perspective.”
Jarosz is nowhere near a newcomer to the concept of collaboration, both in live performance and in songwriting for studio records. Just ask mandolinist and songwriter Chris Thile, former host of the iconic live performance/radio show Live From Here, or Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan, Jarosz’s creative cohorts in the Grammy-winning roots supergroup I’m With Her. The New York-to-Nashville transplant carved out her place in the musical landscape with an indubitable gift for solo songwriting. This gift propelled Jarosz forward for a host of years, a slew of awards, and an ever-growing body of recorded work. However, staying a self-contained songwriter wasn’t without constraint – a state of affairs Jarosz admits was largely self-imposed through much of her early career, for the sake of her own artistic voice.
“I was very closed off to co-writing especially for my first couple records,” she says. “I had managers and label people always trying to set me up on co-writes and I did a couple, but I just don’t think I knew my voice well enough and I hadn’t had long enough writing on my own, performing on my own, and figuring out my sound. I think I was just worried that my voice would get lost in those [writer] rooms.”
Jarosz’s deliberate decision to not only include co-writing, but make it a dominant pillar of Polaroid Lovers seems entirely understandable as a way to push her own creative boundaries. She isn’t shy about sharing the burst of confidence that also arose within her while writing songs for the album. “I really don’t think I could have made this record even five years ago,” she says. “There were so many moments in the studio that I mean, if I’m being honest, kind of – I hate to use the word scared – but challenged me.”
If it feels strange to envision a creative powerhouse of Jarosz’s caliber struggling to embrace new musical ideas, there are plenty of specific sonic snapshots in the songs of Polaroid Lovers that Jarosz can look at through the lens of her past self and know just how differently things could have gone.
“For instance, the beginning of ‘Jealous Moon’ – when the guitar and the drums come in like right at the top – I was like, ‘Whoa, this is on a new playing field for me and a stretch from what I’ve done before,’ but I loved it,” she says. “At the end of the day, my barometer [is about] if the music is moving me, if I believe in it, and if I can proudly sing every lyric with a stamp of approval. And so I think something like that [style of introduction] – I might have just shut it down. Like, it would have scared me a little too much maybe five or 10 years ago and I would have said, ‘No, that’s not me. So we’re not going to do that.’”
Though “Jealous Moon” starts the music of Polaroid Lovers with an adventurous hook, Jarosz actually made the shift to disregard fear and connect with her inner co-writer in her mind from the very first day she met producer Daniel Tashian, while the two co-wrote “Take the High Road” – an upbeat song about staying true to oneself and not shying back from what feels right. “The thing that’s so refreshing and cool about Daniel [Tashian] is that he’s just so open and so endlessly curious about all things music and I think [he] would just be creating all the time if it were up to him,” Jarosz admits.
A seasoned songwriter and collaborator known for his work on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, Tashian brought Jarosz out of her comfort zone, often literally, in providing many changes of scenery for their writing sessions. “I met [Daniel] in March of 2022, which was when I started writing for this record, and… he just kind of welcomed me in to his family,” Jarosz says. “I wound up going on these kinds of writing retreats… and that was cool to just, get out of Nashville, shift our perspective, be in a different place, and just be really open to to the muse and to what would come.”
Other times Tashian’s sharing of simple but impactful thoughts and his own decisive opinions helped to nurtured a spirit of open possibility regarding what Jarosz would be able to write, but also ideally what she would find joy in playing for herself, as well.
“Daniel said something when we were in the studio that really resonated [with me]: ‘Why would you just want to make the same record over and over again?’ I love that, because I think you try to find your voice and hone your voice over the course of a career but the fun is in exploration – at least for me. I mean, maybe some people find comfort and repetition and that’s fine but I really love exploring and ultimately seeking what serves the song. I mean, that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.”
Running parallel to this expanding circle of people, ideas, song forms, and stories that Jarosz was inspired to put into Polaroid Lovers are her personal tools of the trade – particularly her octave mandolin. An instrument Jarosz has grown to appreciate over the years alongside her artistry and proficiency with the mandolin, guitar, and banjo, the octave mandolin is another meaningful element of creative expanse, change, and consistency that’s become integral to who Jarosz is as a musician and what she wants to sound like.
“[Polaroid Lovers] feels more like me than ever before. Even though there might technically be some differences, I feel that it’s very strongly my voice and my sound. I think a huge part of that is my octave mandolin being a prominent texture,” she says. “I’ve gotten to this place where the octave mandolin feels like my sound in a way and I really sort of gravitated towards that instrument over the course of the years.”
A derivation of the mandolin, the octave mandolin is a fitting instrument to feature on an album that reflects new and familiar points of view. “Whenever I play octave [mandolin], I feel like, ‘This is me.’”
Beyond its presence being a defining musical attribute, for this album especially Jarosz says the octave mandolin was also a tool of creative focus amidst everything new and sometimes daunting. “Having [the octave mandolin] sort of be the through-line on this album helped me in those moments where I felt challenged by a sonic thing that felt new,” she says. “The octave mandolin would kind of make me feel like I was grounded.”
Though grounded, one need not mistake Jarosz’s sense of musical stability with any kind of fixation on genre. While there’s almost no escaping others’ archetyping of Jarosz’s work, Polaroid Lovers is neither a show of rebellion against her musical foundations, nor a calculated attempt to partition an exact ratio of familiar stylization with ideas new to her writing process.
“I personally don’t like to think of myself in terms of genre and I never really have,” she says. “It can be frustrating for me when people say, ‘Oh, you’re this, you’re that’ and I feel like, ‘Well, no…’ I think about [music] in terms of if I like it or not.” She adds, “I’ve just always felt that way and I’ve always listened to so many different types of music. It just feels too narrow, too limiting, to have to fit too squarely into a box.”
Despite the fact that the general public can launch a barrage of staunch opinions about the style of Jarosz’s work or what they may perceive is “right” about it, Jarosz says there’s a whole other dimension to Polaroid Lovers yet to be unveiled that won’t come into view until she’s out on the road, playing live, and connecting directly with everyone who’s listening. “The difference between performing a song in the studio versus performing it live in front of an audience is that I think songs sort of start to take their own journey.”
She adds, “I know my story, or I know my part of it. But sometimes, if you can be vague enough, you can almost keep it secret a little bit, where it’s like my story and my feeling about it is my own and then other people get to find their story in it as well. I think something that will be fun in singing these songs over the next however many years is discovering new perspectives with [audiences]. The perspective will really come singing [the songs] over the course of the next year on tour. I’m very excited about getting to do that.”
Ironically, all the talk of a growing compendium of artistic styles, of new collaborators, of new musical techniques, and of new ways to tell new stories truly hammers home the notion that Jarosz’s musical world is an ever transforming space – rather than one made up of experiential snapshots, as Polaroid Lovers is aptly described. Still, Jarosz came up a solo writer and one of the biggest curiosities around potential changes ushered in by this record would be how she views the dynamic of writing music alone versus writing her music with others. Not surprisingly, Jarosz doesn’t see an inner conflict on the horizon. It’s all “the more the merrier.”
“If anything, this [album] just expanded my community, which is a wonderful thing,” Jarosz says. “Especially now living here in Nashville, I think it’s made me feel more a part of this great community. Whereas when I was 18, I think I felt like there was something to lose in writing with people – that being, losing my voice or like kind of losing my way a little bit. Now I don’t feel like that and I think that there’s nothing to lose by sitting down and trying to be creative with with someone else. I think I will always do that from here on out, but it definitely will be simultaneous to me also writing by myself. That’s something that I don’t ever want to lose and that I want to keep doing for as long as I can.”
Perhaps the most remarkable skill of New York-based old-time duo Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman is their ability to place canonical old-time material – fiddle tunes, ballads, breakdowns, hornpipes, transatlantic lyrics, and more – firmly in the present. Aided and abetted by their youth and their now longstanding musical collaboration, the two deftly entwine together timelessness and the fleeting, effervescent moment, leaving listeners on the edges of their seats as we cling to the temporal and seemingly miraculous space that opens up between them.
Brown and Coleman thrive behind NPR’s fabled Tiny Desk, all at once broad and bold while tender and understated, simple. Unadorned, but flush and full. Their new EP together, Lady of the Lake, features two of the numbers they performed at NPR’s headquarters in D.C., the title track and “Copper Kettle.” But they open their mini concert with a set, “Across the Rocky Mountains” and “The Old Blue Bonnet,” with Brown on guitar, before switching to her signature clawhammer banjo. For being so young – she only recently dropped the “Little” from her former stage moniker, Little Nora Brown – her voice carries an ancient ache. As their vocals resonate together in close harmony, Brown and Coleman remind of so many old-time, string band, and bluegrass duos that came before them, like Hazel & Alice, Laurie Lewis & Kathy Kallick, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, and many more.
We hope then, like those impactful and influential duos that came before them, that Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman continue to gift us with gorgeous music such as this for many decades to come.
Artist:Claire Hawkins Hometown: New York, New York Song: “The Name” Album:The Name Release Date: August 4, 2023
In Their Words: “My music has taken me to some incredible places over the years. From a DIY European tour performing in youth hostels and shooting music videos in Ireland, to recording demos in Thailand and writing songs as an artist-in-residence in France, I’m certainly no stranger to being on the move. I wrote this song in my hometown of New York City during a period of transition following two years living in Dublin, Ireland. ‘The Name’ came from a place of yearning and addressing the challenges that come from following your personal North Star, even when it leads you away from the pack. Coming home after a long time away is always an interesting moment for reflection, and one of the perks of being a songwriter is getting to reflect on these moments again and again.” – Claire Hawkins
Artist:Melanie MacLaren Hometown: New York, New York Song: “Tourist” Album:Tourist Release Date: April 20, 2023
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Tourist’ for my nieces and nephews during a time when we were all grieving an unimaginable loss in our family. Most of the songs I’d written during that period were songs I kept to myself because they just felt bleak and counterproductive, and I thought if I was going to write about this at all (and go so far as to record it), I should write a song that lyrically and musically provides some comfort; otherwise it felt wrong. Overall the song is here to say that most everything is temporary, but that there are some things out there that we don’t understand that are true and eternal.
“The love between a parent and child I think can be one of those things — it stays with you when you leave or when the person that loved you leaves. If it’s true, then it stays. The title is kind of a riff on that, talking about something serious in a really corny way. All the songs on the record deal with similar themes — memory, family, loss — and when I wrote this song I realized that they’re all actually about grief in some way or other, and learning how to come to terms with loss by ascribing value to things that are fleeting. Because all things are, but that doesn’t make them pointless.” — Melanie MacLaren
Artist:Jono Manson Hometown: New York City (currently living in Santa Fe, New Mexico) Song: “Make It Through to Spring” Album:Stars Enough To Guide Me Release Date: March 31, 2023 Label: Blue Rose
In Their Words: “The seed for this song came in the depths of last winter, during a particularly cold spell while I was bundled up, taking our dog for her morning walk. While passing along the banks of the Santa Fe river, I noticed water still flowing, under the ice. I took this as a reminder that even in the darkest days of winter new life lies waiting, under the ice, beneath the frozen ground. I wrote most of the lyric that day. I then sent what I had to my long-time collaborator George Breakfast who lives in London, and we passed it back and forth until the song was done.” — Jono Manson
Artist:Nefesh Mountain Hometown: New York City Song: “Revival” Album:Revival: The East Nashville Sessions (Spring 2023) Label: Eden Sky Music
In Their Words: “We’ve gone through so much these past few years, both as a band and as a family! We released two albums, welcomed our baby girl Willow into the world, and toured all while slowly turning the sonic dial of our sound and live shows, adding more extended solos, compositions, and jams. I kept hearing drums and electric guitars in our music, and maybe it’s having this beautiful baby in our lives but I keep going back to the music that I grew up on — bluegrass, yes, and also Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin, Dylan, and The Allman Brothers! I always say there are no rules to our music, no boxes we need to be stuck in, and ‘Revival’ is the first of many new songs and sounds for us in 2023 and beyond.” — Eric Lindberg, Nefesh Mountain
“We live in a world with so much blatant antisemitism and racism, but despite this hate we wanted to pick up thematically where our last album left off — singing nonetheless from a place of love, forward motion, and hope. ‘Revival’ is a classic Allman Brothers tune that we’ve always loved and responded to … about radical LOVE and how music can bring us together. The line that spoke to us the most was ‘We’re in a revolution, don’t you know we’re right. When everyone is singing, there will be no one left to fight.'” — Doni Zasloff, Nefesh Mountain
Artist:Matthew Check Hometown: Newtown, Pennsylvania Song: “Old Wooden Floor” Album:Without a Throne Release Date: September 30, 2022
In Their Words: “Just the other week on August 17, 2022, I celebrated eight years of sobriety and ‘Old Wooden Floor’ is the first song I’ve ever written exclusively about my life as a drinker before I got sober. Unlike some of my songs where I take liberties with things that have happened to me, or where I might obscure certain details with esoterics, the story in ‘Old Wooden Floor’ is basically an autobiographical recounting of what my daily life was like in the final months of my drinking.
“My alcoholism was progressive. For much of my early adult life, I was able to have fun and handle my affairs well. But by my early 30s the hangovers and blackouts were not only awful, but got seemingly worse with every day, week and month that transpired. I knew on a certain level that I wasn’t in control of my own actions anymore. I’d wake up hungover, promising myself not to drink again, only to repeat the same behavior.
“The lyric in the song, ‘Those neon lights are calling / At the corner liquor store’ is literally about the liquor store on the corner of East 90th Street and Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, just by my old apartment. And the lyric, ‘Like the sirens in their mystery on some far distant shore / There’s nobody left to tie me down…’ describes how it was for me. No matter how much I wanted to stop drinking, due to events that had transpired on a previous evening (sometimes because I couldn’t even remember what had happened the night before, in fact), I always felt compelled by some indescribable darkness and loneliness inside of me that was comforted by getting drunk.
“Many years later, as a sober musician, I consider myself lucky that spending time around alcohol often doesn’t bother me (that isn’t always the case with some). In the beginning as I was figuring out life without alcohol, it was of course difficult. But once I finally redirected my habits and activities, I found not only that I could play music without drinking, but that I was an even better musician without any alcohol at all. For me this is one of the greatest gifts of sobriety because more than any other thing in the world, I am a musician and a songwriter.” — Matthew Check
Artist:Fantastic Cat (Don DiLego, Brian Dunne, Anthony D’Amato, Mike Montali) Hometown: New York, New York Song: “Ain’t This the Strangest Town” Album:The Very Best of Fantastic Cat Release Date: July 29, 2022 Label: Blue Rose Music
In Their Words: “‘Ain’t This the Strangest Town’ is one of those songs that came pretty quick after a late night out in New York City. It’s sort of a love song to all the incredible strangers we meet not only there, but in all of our towns, big and small. The germ of the Fantastic Cat idea had just started and it felt like a song that played to the strengths of the band and everyone’s abilities to swap instruments and contribute on so many levels together. We only did a couple takes and what you hear is pretty much everyone picking up the closest instrument and figuring it out in real time. It was a great bonding day for the band in the studio.” — Don DiLego, Fantastic Cat
Steve Forbert is not a dramatic person. His stories are fairly straightforward even though he’s lived a pretty incredible life, which began in Meridian, MS as a young musician.
In the hometown of Jimmie Rodgers, Steve found a great guitar teacher in Virginia Shine Harvey, who claimed she was a relation to the famous singing brakeman. Ms. Harvey taught Steve music through performance and connected him to other young musicians in the area, who then went on to form a couple of bands. He left his town for New York City in his early 20’s where he pounded the pavement as a singer-songwriter for a couple years before catching a break. During his climb upwards, Forbert found acceptance in New York’s punk scene, especially at the historic CBGB’s where club owner Hilly Kristal gave him a chance and introduced him to his manager. From there, Steve went on to start making records. His second album, Jackrabbit Slim, gave him his hit song, “Romeo’s Tune,” which he credits giving him his career and “a ticket into the show.” He’s releasing his latest, Moving Through America, with more character studies and focuses on life’s oddities.
It’s not easy to get Steve to talk about himself and his reflections, but he’s up for giving it a shot. He wrote a memoir in 2018, Big City Cat: My Life in Folk-Rock, which sounds like it was a challenge for him to revisit and write about his past – not because it seems like it was filled with mistakes and scandal, but because it was sooo much about himself. He seems grateful for the opportunity to still have a career and does not take it for granted. He also makes some very hip and hot music references in our conversation: like bringing up rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Jack Harlow. Color me impressed, Steve Forbert is watching the Billboard Hot 100.
Photo Credit: Marcus Maddox
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