Sarah Siskind

Born in North Carolina, Sarah Siskind maintained her own recording career even though her rootsy, folk-based material drew greater notice through performances by other artists. This positioned her between the functions of behind-the-scenes songwriter and independent performer. Raised in the continental southeast by musical parents, she absorbed bluegrass and old-timey music during toddlerhood, an immersion that shaped her songwriting from an early age. She started composing at eleven and finished her first album three years later. Regional songwriting competitions began to note her fusion of rustic Americana with contemporary country, leading her to relocate to Nashville at twenty-one, where she kept issuing albums and drew notice from industry veterans.

Bluegrass icon Alison Krauss recorded Siskind’s “Simple Love” in 2007, and the song’s subsequent Grammy nomination further increased the songwriter’s visibility. She later supplied backing vocals on a Paul Brady album and joined Bon Iver for European dates whose sets regularly closed with her song “Lovin’s for Fools.” Throughout this period she sustained her own writing, issuing Say It Louder as her sixth album in 2009. A reissue of her debut, 2003’s Covered, followed in 2013.