Sandy Dillon

Sandy Dillon forged a singular path through the 1990s by fusing the emotional directness of Hank Williams, the experimental daring of Igor Stravinsky and Captain Beefheart, and the raw propulsion of Patti Smith. Alongside her own recordings of what she termed “jazz-punk western blues,” she collaborated with forward-thinking groups including Ensemble Modern and Man Parrish.

Born and raised on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, Dillon took up the piano at six. After classical training at the Berklee College of Music she moved to New York, where she settled in the Chelsea Hotel and sustained herself by performing jazz piano in gay bars and supper clubs while also playing Janis Joplin in a Broadway show drawn from the singer’s life.

Elektra signed her in the early 1990s, yet the label resisted her material; two albums produced by Mick Ronson remained shelved. The company eventually issued her third project, Dancing on the Freeway, as her debut in 1995, after which she parted ways with the imprint.

With her husband and creative partner Steve Bywaters she continued recording at home. The independent Bonjour imprint brought out Skating in 1996; Electric Chair, described by Dillon as “an album of torch songs where the woman doesn’t get burned,” appeared in July 1999, followed by East Overshoe in 2001. Bywaters’s sudden death from a heart attack soon afterward left her working alone for the first time in over ten years.

In summer 2002 she began a new record. One Little Indian issued Nobody’s Sweetheart in 2004, Pull the Strings arrived in 2006, and Living in Dreams surfaced in 2008.