Since Nickel Creek declared its indefinite hiatus in 2007, violinist/vocalist Sara Watkins has been relentlessly busy. She teamed up with fellow Americana artists Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan for the trio I’m With Her, contributed to the supergroup Works Progress Administration, found new inspiration with her brother Sean in the collaborative Watkins Family Hour and even reunited with Nickel Creek.
Above all, Watkins has identified and refined her solo voice. Her eponymous 2009 debut established her post-Nickel Creek profile, earning her opening slots for Robert Earl Keen, Tift Merritt and others. With 2012’s Sun Midnight Sun, she took her tentative first steps toward a true solo persona, resulting in session/touring opportunities with John Mayer, Jackson Browne and The Decemberists.
After four years of the aforementioned work, Watkins seriously considered her third album. Her deal with Nonesuch Records and management affiliation ended almost simultaneously, so Watkins drew inspiration from the uncertainty to create the magnificent and decidedly different Young in All the Wrong Ways.
“I had just started writing and I needed to record these songs soon, so label be damned, this is what had to happen,” Watkins says. “It felt good to be doing it without a big structure, instead just going to my producer (Gabe Witcher)’s house and trimming some of the fat off these songs and having someone to bounce ideas off of and talk about instrumentation and what kind of albums we love without a huge framework of time but feeling a sense of urgency to get this thing out.”
Perhaps the most important creative aspect of Young in All the Wrong Ways is that, for the first time, Watkins wrote or co-wrote every song on the album. As a result, she feels invested in her new material in a way that she hasn’t yet experienced.
“We ended up with an album that’s more lyrically focused,” she says. “Being that it’s the first album that’s all original or co-written from me, I think there’s more of a singular view to the end-all package.”
Watkins didn’t road test her new songs before taking them into the studio, so recent gigs have represented the live debuts of her Wrong Ways tunes. Whether in full-band or solo mode, she’s having a blast.
“It’s always satisfying to unveil something to people in different ways, so I’m still in that process and enjoying it,” Watkins says. “Songs from my catalog that didn’t fit the repertoire are fitting now. I’m changing the arrangements to older songs and I’m probably going to start putting in stuff like ‘When It Pleases You.’ It definitely is changing the whole picture.”
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This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 1, 2017.