NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Havighurst) I’m With Her, the all-star folk trio of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan, has released its first original band-written song.
“Little Lies” - a live in studio performance released on YouTube - is a single in advance of I’m With Her’s first recording, an EP of five cover songs recorded on stage in New York in 2015.
The artists involved are three of the most admired women of their generation in bluegrass and acoustic Americana. Watkins and O’Donovan came up with bands Nickel Creek and Crooked Still respectively. Sarah Jarosz was a Texas songwriting prodigy who's had a Grammy Winning career on Sugar Hill Records.
The three were already longtime friends and colleagues who’d made music in various settings. But Jarosz says the catalyst for the band was working up songs for a workshop at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2014.
“And I remember we just kind of slid in with these harmonies in a pretty seamless manner and I remember us all looking around the circle at each other and thinking okay this feels different and special.”
Later that same day, she said, the trio worked up a six-song impromptu opening set for the Punch Brothers at the festival’s late night Sheridan Opera House show.
“That was really I think the moment when we were like: ‘Okay. I think we should continue to do this.”
Now with solo albums from 2015 and 2016 somewhat behind them, Jarosz, O’Donovan and Watkins are leaning in to the trio project, with at least visions of recording a full studio album this year, Jarosz says.
At the end of this month I’m With Her launches two weeks on the road with Punch Brothers and guitarist Julian Lage. Tour dates can be found here.