Americana Homegrown in Virginia
After taking a multi-year hiatus from the full-time music business, Virginia-native Sarah White has released her first full-length album since 2006. High Flyer, released on August 3, was produced by Stewart Myers, who previously worked with the likes of Jason Mraz, the Infamous Stringdusters and Lifehouse. In addition to producing the album, Myers also plays bass on High Flyer. Pianist and keyboardist Daniel Clarke has played with the likes of Ryan Adams and k.d. lang in the past, giving the album a notable resume of esteemed studio work.
White has stated in interviews that High Flyer is the album that she’s “always wanted to make,“ compiling work she has created over the course of the last two decades. White also received help from variety of sources to fund the album, including a Kickstarter campaign in 2015. 190 donators pledged $14,500 dollars to help fund the album, according to the Kickstarter webpage.
The album’s opening track, “Carry Me Over,” and its follow-up, “All the Reasons,” both sound like they were ripped right from a country radio station discography. Both are very sunny, steady, and have a firm backbone with underlying piano and organ riffs. Even “Little Bird,” with its steady clap-and-stomp rhythm and smooth pedal steel guitar solo, sounds like it can be easily thrown on any country playlist around the nation without any naysaying from country or western fans.
For the folksier folks, “I Follow Hard” is a slow, yearning and meticulous baring of White’s soul on top of a cacophony of reverberating strings. White has described “Sarah Arizona” as something of barroom or campfire anthem, one that the listener can easily sing along and sway to with its waltzing rhythm. “Sweetheart” features fellow Virginian Dave Matthews singing backup vocals in the chorus. White recently told Billboard that the lyrics for the song came from an old notebook that she kept during an unhappy relationship.
The album ends with a duo of solemn and simple piano ballads that put White’s voice and emotional exposition front and center. “White Light” is the shortest track on the album, with its smoky, jazz lounge vibe relying heavily on the hanging single notes from a piano and an organ. The lyrics revolve around a quiet admission that the singer wants to see her former partner again, realizing the “white light” of her past mistakes in their relationship. “Already Down” starts with a somber piano intro before diving into the often repeated refrain “Thinking about you / I’m already down, already down,” with White’s voice nearly breaking after each soulful delivery.
Admittedly, White’s genre is hard to pin down. Being raised by music-loving “hippie” parents who introduced her to a laundry list of artists and genres undoubtedly influenced her rock-country-folk sound combo. This gives High Flyer a deep-rooted feeling of both familiarity and real deal authenticity. The album simply feels like White has spent hours, months and (more likely than not) years crafting and honing these tracks into the presentation we find them on here. On High Flyer, the finished product sounds like this crafting was worth all the time in the world it took to create it.
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