It’s Saturday night in Seattle’s thriving Ballard neighborhood and I’m at the Tractor Tavern to see folk singer Sarah Jarosz headline a show. Although calling Sarah Jarosz folk is not exactly accurate. She’s part folk, part bluegrass and a little country tossed in. She’s one hundred percent child prodigy. She’s turning 23 later this month but has already written several songs, plays banjo, guitar and mandolin. And she can sing. One minute she’s singing like a song bird and the next she’s belting out songs almost as gutsy as Aretha. She even performed a couple Dylan songs (Simple Twist of Fate and Ring Them Bells) better than Dylan. Okay, that’s not saying much since Dylan never could sing.
Accompanying Sarah were her two constant sidekicks, Nathaniel Smith on cello and Alex Hargrave on fiddle/violin.
Throughout, Sarah’s Texas roots came through, but in an endearing way as she frequently said, “Y’all.”
Part way through the set, Nathaniel and Alex left the stage, to which Sarah announced, “It’s just you and me now.” and she performed a hauntingly beautiful song called Gypsy.
Nathaniel returned to the stage for the aforementioned “Twist of Fate” and he gently plucked the strings of his cello.
When the trio performed an instrumental called Puddle Jumper it sounded like an old fashioned hootenanny. There was barely a still body in this sold out crowd.
The encore consisted of the Tom Waits song Come On Up to the House, which everyone sang along to. Sarah Jarosz has quite a strong fan base in Seattle, though I don’t know how. This kind of music is far too intelligent and well done to get any airplay on commercial radio. But at this rate, Sarah Jarosz will become a legend.
Opening the show was a duo from Portland, OR called Alameda. Comprised of singer/guitarist Stirling Myles and cellist Jessie Dettwiler, they blended folky elements with a modern touch and did a great job warming the audience up. They even mentioned the last time they played Seattle at the Comet Tavern and someone had thrown up on the floor in front of them. This brought laughs from the rapt crowd. They were very well received judging by the raucous cheers they received after each melodic song. They were definitely the perfect opener for Sarah Jarosz.
