Sara Watkins returns to the Four Corners for the 43rd Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival this weekend. KSUT will feature her latest solo project, Young In All The Wrong Ways, due out July 1, this Friday (6/17) at noon.
Best known as a member of Nickel Creek, along with Chris Thile and her brother Sean, this is Watkins third solo effort. She wrote or co-wrote each of the 10 songs – a first for her. It was produced by founding Punch Brother Gabe Witcher who arranged a stellar band including guitarist Chris Eldridge and bass player Paul Kowert, and additional musicians Jon Brion and Jay Bellerose. Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan, Watkins’ bandmates in I’m With Her, provide harmonies on the title track, while Jim James of My Morning Jacket guests on “One Last Time." Benmont Tench is featured on keys. Sara calls the record "a breakup album with myself". “I looked around and realized that in many ways I wasn’t who or where I wanted to be," Sara says. "It’s been a process of letting go and leaving behind patterns and relationships and in some cases how I’ve considered myself. What these songs are documenting is the turmoil you feel when you know something has to change and you’re grappling with what that means. It means you’re losing something and moving forward into the unknown.”
The songs contain some of the heaviest moments of her career, with eruptions of thrumming B3 organ and jagged electric guitar. But it’s also quiet, vulnerable, tenderhearted. Young in All the Wrong Ways reveals an artist who has managed to transform her own turmoil into music that is beautiful and deeply moving: “God bless the tenderhearted,” she sings, “who let life overflow.”
