Sarah Jarosz: “Annabelle Lee”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A Grammy nomination, critical raves from the Austin Chronicle and Rolling Stone, headlining festival gigs all across the world – these things have become par for the course for Sarah Jarosz. Pretty amazing stuff, especially considering this past weekend, the local songwriter turned twenty years old.
In the span of a few short years, Jarosz has risen fast through the ranks. Yet she’s put in the work necessary for all the attention, playing bluegrass mandolin since she was young and picking up the banjo and guitar along the way. Her 2009 debut, Song Up In Her Head was a critical smash and put the Wimberley native on the folk music map.
But instead of constant touring and recording, Jarosz enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston to study. After her first year, she recorded her recently-released sophomore album during her summer vacation. Follow Me Down picks up where she left off, but it’s more mature and stylistically diverse. She draws from contemporary sources in both the indie and rock and roll world as much as the bluegrass and folk genres, which makes for an excellent mixture of both old and new. And it seems Boston has rubbed off a bit as well, with a bit of an Irish folk lilt added to the twang.
The record is already turning heads. Just this past week, Jarosz was nominated for yet another honor–the Americana Music Awards, taking place October 13 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. One of the album’s standouts is “Annabelle Lee,” a driving piece that’s lyrically adapted from an Edgar Allen Poe poem. You can take a listen to the song below, recorded live in KUT’s Studio 1A.
Podcast: Download (4.1MB)
