Sarah Brown

Sarah Brown has performed for years as a bassist, vocalist and composer, though recognition has come unevenly to her across different audiences. Since settling in Austin, Texas in 1982, she had previously immersed herself in the blues community of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her bass work has supported Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, James Cotton, Dr. John, Memphis Slim and Earl King, while Marcia Ball, Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli, Joe Louis Walker and Lavelle White have cut tracks from her catalog. The Vipers, whose lineup featured drummer Fran Christina, provided the setting for her initial studio date on Blind Pig Records. That same imprint issued her first album, Sayin' What I'm Thinkin', in 1996.

As the child of a University of Michigan professor specializing in Russian literature, Brown took up cello during high school. Everything shifted for her upon witnessing Buddy Guy's performance in 1965. Captivated by the blues and the bass itself, she simultaneously absorbed the soul recordings of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke. A period of study at Berklee College of Music in Boston ended after one year when she returned to Ann Arbor and established herself amid the city's expanding blues circuit.

National road work with Big Walter Horton, the Rhythm Rockers, Geoff Muldaur and her band the Hipshakes preceded a 1982 European trek alongside slide guitarist J.B. Hutto. She relocated to Austin later the same year to join the LeRoi Brothers. Although widely respected for her blues bass playing, Brown has consistently resisted confinement to that single idiom, favoring instead an array of styles and spontaneous collaborations with Austin ensembles of all kinds.

Two decades into her bass career she chose to front her own trio, an effort documented on the Blind Pig debut. Lou Ann Barton on vocals and Marcia Ball on piano and vocals appear among the guests.