Song Up in Her Head

Seventeen-year-old Texas native Sarah Jarosz emerged on the scene about five years ago as someone to watch. Jamming onstage with bluegrass icons David Grisman and Ricky Skaggs, she played her mandolin with a sure touch and real joy. It looked and sounded comfortable in her then twelve-year-old hands. She started writing songs on the guitar and took up the banjo. While her instrumental talents are formidable, let's make one thing clear: Sarah is a singer. Her voice is velvety smooth, agile, and powerful occasionally reminiscent of such disparate artists as Natalie Maines and Patty Griffin.

'Song Up In Her Head' is produced by Sarah Jarosz and award-winning engineer and producer Gary Paczosa and features a mix of 11 original new-old-timey ballads written by Sarah Jarosz. There are two well chosen covers in the forms of the Decemberists' "Shankill Butchers" and the Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan co-write, "Come On Up To The House" which fit unobtrusively next to her own eleven songs. And of course she can play: mandolin, clawhammer banjo, guitar, and piano.

Collaborators on the album include teenaged peers Samson Grisman and Alex Hargreaves, as well as veterans of the acoustic scene, Chris Thile, Darrell Scott, Stuart Duncan, Mike Marshall and Jerry Douglas.