Sarah Sharp

The wait for Texan songstress Sarah Sharp's first full-length album is finally over, and what a revelation it is. She and her band have gone for broke in a major way, with a richly orchestrated and dynamically produced album of enormous depth and substance. Recorded over a period of months in Dan Workman's legendary Sugar Hill Studio in Houston (Workman produced recent Destiny's Child and Beyoncé albums), then subsequently mastered at the Hit Factory, this is the sound of an artist who has found the right collaborators, in particular a musical genius by the name of Kevin Ryan. It's no surprise that when you try to get to his website, you end up somewhere called "Recording The Beatles", such is the quality of the analogue keyboard stylings and arrangements which he contributes, placing the songs in an entirely appropriate aural context. It's not unlike what the White Stripes have been aiming at with their recent recordings, though stylistically it’s a million miles away. You feel that the achievement here is what Heather Nova was after when she recorded with Mercury Rev. I can pay no higher compliment than to say that Ryan can now be thought about in the same breath as Dave Fridman. If you haven't come across Sarah before, treat yourself to a listen to an American artist who is seemingly not scared to tread her own path. No watered-down alt-country here. Her palette covers everything from melancholy ballads such as "Time Capsule" to whimsical slices of life like "Coffee Shop Song" or the craziness of her show-stopping three-minute soap opera "Finally", all presented with total integrity in a voice which is little short of astonishing. And unusually for today, the overall atmosphere is almost entirely "up". This is an artist whose day has come. What's more, she'll be touring the UK later in the year. You'd be mad to miss it.

- Logo Magazine UK

Austin Chronicle 2004-05 Austin Music Awards

JAZZ
1. Blaze
2. Monster Big Band
3. Paris49
4. Torch
5. Sarah Sharp
6. John Pinter & Carlos Sosa's Boombox
7. Eric Johnson
8. Blue Mist
9. Los Jazz Vatos
10. Slim Richey's Dream Band


POP
1. Wideawake
2. Spoon
3. Matson Belle
4. Los Lonely Boys
5. Cruiserweight
6. Future Ex-Boyfriend
7. Bob Schneider
8. Mina Mauldin
9. Sarah Sharp
10. Pivital



Sarah Sharp's "Fourth Person" was chosen as one of the Austin Chronicle's Top 10 Texas albums of 2004


Matt Dentler
1) Young Heart Attack, Mouthful of Love (XL)

2) Dynah

3) The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered (Gammon)

4) Devin the Dude, To Tha X-Treme (Rap-A-Lot)

5) Sarah Sharp, Fourth Person

6) Old 97s, Drag It Up (New West)

7) Zykos (Post-Parlo)

8) Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo (Or Music)

9) Patty Griffin, Impossible Dream (ATO)

10) Willie Nelson, It Always Will Be (Lost Highway)
- Austin Chronicle

You'd be forgiven for pegging Sarah Sharp as an eccentric import. Odd time signatures, obscure arrangements and detailed scene descriptions make Fourth Person a good match for the European venues she traipsed through last month, but the soulful turns of her songs give her Austin address away. Jazzy romps like "Blame It on the Night" smooth out Sharp's high voice, but when she lets loose on the sarcastic "Finally," it stays just perfectly short of shrill for the album's most dramatic delivery. Recently, Sharp has taken on a second career as a music supervisor for independent movies like Drop Dead Sexy. The new job may keep her busy between her frequent tours, but it's her intricate songs and voice that are ever so slowly taking over the world.







- Dallas Observer - Sander Wolf

For many Winchester music lovers, the absolute highlight of last year was the sensational performance by Texan singer-songwriter Sarah Sharp at the Railway in June. The only disappointment was that a problem with the customs meant that Sarah had no CDs on sale.
Well, the wait is now over, because Sarah's first full-length album is complete and just available. And what a revelation it is. Any worries about how her extraordinary stage act could be translated onto CD are dispelled from the first moment. She and her band have gone for broke in a major way, with a richly orchestrated and dynamically produced album of enormous depth and substance.
Recorded over a period of months in Dan Workman's legendary Sugar Hill Studio in Houston, then subsequently mastered at the Hit Factory, this is the sound of an artist who has found the right collaborators, in particular a musical genius by the name of Kevin Ryan. It's no surprise that when you try to get to his website, you end up somewhere called "Recording The Beatles", such is the quality of the analogue keyboard stylings and arrangements which he contributes, placing the songs in an entirely appropriate aural context. It's not unlike what the White Stripes have been aiming at with their more recent recordings, though stylistically a million miles away. You feel that the achievement here is what Heather Nova was after when she recorded with Mercury Rev. I can pay no higher compliment than to say that Ryan can now be thought about in the same breath as Dave Fridman.
If you haven't come across Sarah before, treat yourself to a listen to an American artist who is seemingly not scared to tread her own path. No watered-down alt-country here. Her palette covers everything from melancholy ballads such as "Time Capsule" to whimsical slices of life like "Coffee Shop Song" or the craziness of her show-stopping three-minute soap opera "Finally", all presented with total integrity in a voice which is little short of astonishing. And unusually for today, the overall atmosphere is almost entirely "up".
This is an artist whose day has come. What's more, she'll be touring the UK later in the year. You'd be mad to miss it.
www.sarahsharp.com

Oliver Gray
- Oliver Gray

This is one for all those out there who cringe when they hear the phrase singer-songwriter. Sarah Sharp’s debut album, produced by Dan Workman (ZZ Top, Destiny’s Child and Beyonce), avoids over the top introspection in favour of sharp hooks and wordplay.
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Sharp, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, first took to performing when in London. One night, so the story goes, she was enticed to sing at an open mic session in a blues bar in Soho. She did a Bonnie Raitt song, and hasn’t looked back since.
It’s hard to pin down the music, which in itself has to be a good thing. It’s definitely radio friendly, but that doesn’t mean bland. Her voice remains at the centre of each song, with traces of both blues and country, The full band pieces tend towards sunny, intelligent pop, but for my money she’s at her best on the more stripped back numbers such as Time Capsule, or It’s too late, which has definite traces of the better side of Tori Amos.
It’s not all sunshine and roses though. At times, particularly on Finally, the clever wordplay verges on forced humour, and ends up sounding like a above average version of Shania Twain, which is not something the world needs (though undoubtedly there’ll be plenty of DJs worldwide happy to force it upon us given the right circumstances).
So, all in all, a terrifically accomplished and confident debut from Sarah Sharp. The songwriting, production and performance is all imbued with a determination and talent that suggests we’ll be hearing lots more from this new voice.
- Three Monkeys Music

*Monte Montgomery, Sarah Sharp*
Sam's Burger Joint —Acoustic ace learned part of his craft just up the street from Sam's at Good Time Charlie's, so it's fitting that he return to the neighborhood to headline. Montgomery mixes the guitar action with singing and songwriting and does the mixing well. Sharp, a Berklee College grad, makes music that's wonderfully difficult to classify. Part jazz, part pop, part folk and part rock, plus part whatever else she wants to put into her art, Sharp is an excellent singer and songwriter with a great imagination and delivery. Her latest CD is "Fourth Person."

San Antonio Express
- San Antonio Express

Not long ago, local jazz-pop siren Sarah Sharp found herself in one of the most hallowed locales anywhere in the music world: Studio A in Capitol Records' Hollywood headquarters, behind the same microphone used by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and the Beach Boys, and with legendary Capitol house engineer Al Schmidt at the controls. While playing a friend's party in Pacific Palisades in August, Sharp met former Rufus drummer and producer Andre Fisher, who took a shine to her the same way he had Chaka Khan and Dusty Springfield. After her next L.A. gig, Fisher introduced her to Schmidt and publishing tycoon Ronnie Vance, and "the next thing I knew we were in the studio," she says. (Even better, her neighbor in Studio B was none other than Poison.) Sharp admits to feeling flustered upon entering the "enormous" studio, but relaxed enough that of the five songs the three decided to mix down into demos, four were recorded that first session. "There's something about being a little bit timid, that I love the way it translated," Sharp says. "I've never heard myself back like that." Her high-placed friends plan to shop the songs to several labels – Capitol first, of course – while Sharp readies for a European swing later this month. "So far everything they've said has happened," she says. "That's the only reason I don't feel like a complete dumbass for talking about it." - Chris Gray - Austin Chronicle

Sarah Sharp shatters unmistakable influences from Alanis Morrissette to Jewel, creating a protein shake of mid-1990s female-oriented pop/rock on her Fourth Person. Unlike some of her inspirations, however, Sharp's debut is light on the protein and heavy on the shake. What shakes is a blissful pulse, one in which songs about love-breaking ("Surrender") and love-making ("Time Capsule") coexist comfortably. Sharp's delivery, a cross between Tracy Bonham and Veruca Salt's Nina Gordon, has all of the raspy strength to match her subtle songwriting techniques. But much of the kudos belongs to producers Dan Workman and Kevin Ryan for taking otherwise routine compositions and arranging them to sound so much grander. "Run" could've been just another barroom ballad à la Sheryl Crow, but with the haunting additions of various keys and toys, it becomes a fanciful event with a killer hook. The same can be said for the album's best tracks, "Too Close" and "Can't We Just Love?," which feature staggering performances by the band and producers. Not to be outdone, Sharp shines on relative solo tracks, like the peaceful, Tori Amos-tinged "It's Too Late." Maintaining a one-woman Lilith Fair must be exhausting. - Austin Chronicle

The wait for Texan songstress Sarah Sharp's first full-length album is finally over, and what a revelation it is. She and her band have gone for broke in a major way, with a richly orchestrated and dynamically produced album of enormous depth and substance. Recorded over a period of months in Dan Workman's legendary Sugar Hill Studio in Houston (Workman produced recent Destiny's Child and Beyoncé albums), then subsequently mastered at the Hit Factory, this is the sound of an artist who has found the right collaborators, in particular a musical genius by the name of Kevin Ryan. It's no surprise that when you try to get to his website, you end up somewhere called "Recording The Beatles", such is the quality of the analogue keyboard stylings and arrangements which he contributes, placing the songs in an entirely appropriate aural context. It's not unlike what the White Stripes have been aiming at with their recent recordings, though stylistically it’s a million miles away. You feel that the achievement here is what Heather Nova was after when she recorded with Mercury Rev. I can pay no higher compliment than to say that Ryan can now be thought about in the same breath as Dave Fridman. If you haven't come across Sarah before, treat yourself to a listen to an American artist who is seemingly not scared to tread her own path. No watered-down alt-country here. Her palette covers everything from melancholy ballads such as "Time Capsule" to whimsical slices of life like "Coffee Shop Song" or the craziness of her show-stopping three-minute soap opera "Finally", all presented with total integrity in a voice which is little short of astonishing. And unusually for today, the overall atmosphere is almost entirely "up". This is an artist whose day has come. – Oliver Gray - Amplifier Magazine

26, January 2006
Sarah Sharp is one part Tina Fey, one part Aimee Mann. Both Sharp and Fey thrive in a male-dominated world, write brilliantly and would be dead ringers for each other with a quick dye job. And both Sharp and Mann create soaring, piano-infused, jazz-tinged pop melodies that come crashing down around you. But where Mann leaves you wanting Zoloft, Sharp leaves you wanting more. The Austin chanteuse's witty, quirky and sexy vocal stylings are magnificently showcased on her latest release, Fourth Person (produced by Houstonian Dan Workman, who worked magic with Beyoncé). You can get a sample today when Sharp takes the stage at Theater LaB Houston for a special concert that promises to be anything but dull. 8 p.m. 1706 Alamo. For tickets and information, call 713-927-6704 or visit www.theaterlabhouston.com. $15. , Written By Steven Devadanam - Houston Press