Sara Watkins plans soph disc
Produced by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Blake Mills, co-founder of the band Simon Dawes, the album features special guest appearances by Fiona Apple, Jackson Browne, Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Benmont Tench and brother Sean Watkins.
The disc follows Watkins' 2009 self-titled solo debut produced by John Paul Jones. In the three years since her last release, Watkins has toured as guest fiddle player and vocalist with The Decemberists and joined Garrison Keillor on his nationwide Summer Love performance tours.
"Sun Midnight Sun" was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Shawn Everett at Zeitgeist Studio, Los Angeles, and includes songs written by Watkins (You and Me, Take Up Your Spade) as well as several collaborations with Mills (The Foothills, Be There, The Accord, Impossible and Lock and Key). It also features songs by Dan Wilson (When It Pleases You) and Willie Nelson (I'm a Memory) and a rendition of The Everly Brothers' You're the One I Love, on which Apple duets.
Tour dates are:
March 24 Dauphin Island, AL Seagrass Music Festival
April 14-15 College Station, TX Old Tyme Wonderland
April 17 Oklahoma City, OK Blue Door
April 19 St. Louis, MO Blueberry Hill
April 20 Chicago, IL Old Town School of Folk Music
April 21 Madison, WI The High Noon Saloon
April 22 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center
April 28 Indio, CA Stagecoach Festival
May 2 San Diego, CA Anthology
May 3 Los Angeles, CA The Watkins Family Hour at Largo **
May 27 Cumberland, MD Delfest
May 31 York, PA Strand-Capitol PAC*
June 1 Washington, DC 9:30 Club*
June 2 Elmer, NJ Appel Farms Arts and Music Festival*
June 3 Hunter Mountain, NY Mountain Jam Festival*
June 5 Pittsburgh, PA Three Rivers Arts Festival*
June 6 Cincinnati, OH Taft Theatre*
June 7 Indianapolis, IN The Vogue*
June 10 Athens, GA The Melting Point*
June 11 Chattanooga, TN Track 29*
June 13 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel*
June 14 Carrboro, NC Cat's Cradle*
June 15 Richmond, VA Friday Cheers*
June 16 New York, NY City Winery
June 17 Croton on Hudson, NY Clearwater Festival
July 29 Newport, RI Newport Folk Festival
** as part of the LA Bluegrass Situation
* opening for Dawes
Additional dates to be announced.
More news for Sara Watkins
- 04/18/25: I'm With Her is "Standing on the Fault Line"
- 03/09/23: Nickel Creek finds out "Where the Long Line Leads"
- 02/07/23: Nickel Creek returns to road
- 01/27/21: Watkins announces children's disc
- 01/21/20: Watkins Family Hour returns to action
- 04/21/16: Watkins remains "Young in All the Wrong Ways"
- 05/08/12: Watkins, Green release new CDs
- 07/06/09: Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins contribute to Cy Coleman tribute
CD reviews for Sara Watkins
Understand that this is a children's album. Yet, if you're looking for the sounds of Sara Watkins with her groups Nickel Creek and I'm With Her bandmates, they are here on "Under the Pepper Tree," just not in the way you typically hear them. The album also features guest appearances from Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, David Garza and Watkins' now three-year-old daughter who inevitably factored into the album's inspiration.
These 15 songs, only two of which are ...
Sara Watkins' voice is powerful. "Young In All The Wrong Ways" showcases her instrument admirably. Watkins burst upon the music scene in 1989, as part of Nickel Creek, teaming with her brother Sean and mandolinist Chris Thile. Nickel Creek had a solid run of recording and live music performances for a couple of decades before the members spread out into other collaborations (Nickel Creek has played a few festival dates most years, alongside their other projects). ...
Well, so much for the sweet, adorable Sara Watkins. After an endearing, cuddly solo debut in 2009 that included her foot-stomping rendition of John Hartford's Long Hot Summer Day, Watkins adds a new wrinkle with her latest effort: an edgy, sometimes angry attitude.
Bathing her songs in a folky-bluegrass setting with an array of way-cool guests, If It Pleases You is a defiant flip-off while Willie Nelson's I'm a Memory seethes with open hostility as Watkins and brother Sean rage ...
©Country Standard Time • Jeffrey B. Remz, editor & publisher • countrystandardtime@gmail.com
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