Now that Nickel Creek has grown up and moved on, it’s time for a new bluegrass prodigy to remind me that I’m a poser. That’s my feeling every time I listen to 18-year-old Sarah Jarosz, who learned to play the mandolin at the age of 10, has played Rockgrass, Telluride and Great Fox in the last couple years and released a new album on Sugar Hill in June.
Song Up In Her Head, 13-track album including 10 songs that Sarah wrote herself, features a HUGE list of accompaniments including Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Mike Marshall, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, Ben Sollee, Chris Thile, and Abigail Washburn, just to name a few. Sarah not only rocks the mandolin, clawhammer banjo, guitar, and piano, but she’s got a voice that I can put on the shelf next to Patty Griffin’s without hesitation.
In an interview earlier this month with Voice of America, Sarah was asked why she waited so long to put out an album when she had been so damn cute and so damn good for so damn long (relatively speaking).
She replied,
“I knew that I wanted my first record to be a really good representation of my original music. And I feel that because I was patient, I am really proud of the final product.”
Patience is a virtue. The lucky boys of Boston’s New England Conservatory can fight over all year as started class there earlier this month.
P.S. My favorite tracks from the new album: The cheerful “Can’t Hide” and the ominous “Shanekill Butchers”.
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