The music bug bit Sarah Jaffe early. And hard.
At age 3, the Denton, Texas-rooted, Dallas-based singer/songwriter was asking her mom for instruments; by 9, she had procured her first guitar via a garage sale and started penning her own songs. As a teen, Jaffe, who grew up in a household soundtracked by folkies like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, would graduate high school a year early, all so she could chase a career in music sooner. After distributing demo materials to venues in the Dallas area, she began performing at open mics and proper shows alike, amassing experience and connections.
This build-up culminated in 2010 with the release of her debut full-length, Suburban Nature. A restrained, bruised Alt Country album, Suburban played to Jaffe’s strengths as an endearingly wounded voice, someone seemingly destined to spend a career making acoustic music.
But the story of her rise hardly plateaus there. In 2012, she released The Body Wins, which took her revealing croon and folky sensibility and paired them with spry, slinky Electro Pop. August marked the arrival of Don’t Disconnect, and her third record carries on her second’s Pop-leaning spirit. Also of note in Jaffe’s bio: She netted a great feature spot last year on “Bad Guy,” a tune from Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
Making big moves right now is nice enough, but she’s very much got the future on her mind.
“For me,” she told Salt Lake City Weekly last December, “the main goal is longevity.”
SARAH JAFFE plays the Ballroom at the Taft Theatre Tuesday, Sept. 23. Find tickets/more info here.
