Sarah Buxton is making the music she originally set out to make. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter has long excelled inside the machine with her eyes fixed firmly outside of it, plotting a space of her own. On her mesmerizing EP SIGNS OF LIFE, she’s made it. Buxton’s exquisite rasp of a soprano explores death, love, marriage, and the ways we need each other, like a tender but fierce friend willing to share what she’s learned.
“I always wanted to make a record that would live in somebody else’s world the way a Joni Mitchell record does in mine,” Buxton says. “I always felt like Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks were my older sisters, walking with me, lifting my chin up and saying, ‘You got this.’” She pauses, then adds, “Instead of being the artist’s, the song becomes yours when you listen to it––your song about your life.”
On SIGNS OF LIFE, Buxton’s songwriting––relied upon for years now by Nashville A-listers––is more potent than ever, vulnerable and free in the service of Buxton’s own vision and story. Sacred, feminine, natural, and wise, her new songs exude the energy mustered by looking for answers and the calm that comes with trusting yourself. “Obviously, I’m more mature than I was in my early 20s, but I kind of look at my place in the world the same way now that I did then,” she says. “When you’re older, you’re just as potent as you were, but with wisdom.”
A singer’s singer who’s lent her signature ethereal grit to projects for a range of artists from Miranda Lambert to Dierks Bentley to David Nail to Blake Shelton to Will Hoge, Buxton has also written songs for a list that’s equally impressive: Keith Urban, Florida Georgia Line, Big & Rich, Gary Allan, Trisha Yearwood, Caitlyn Smith, Sarah Jarosz, Reba McEntire, Harry Connick Jr., Dan Tyminski, and more. She’s sung on records for Urban, Florida Georgia Line, McBride, Smith, Tyminski, and numerous others as well––evidence of a telling pattern: When discerning ears hear her voice singing her song, they want to incorporate as much of Buxton’s magic into their own version as possible. Buxton has also contributed songs to hit TV series such as Nashville, for which she and co-writer Kate York earned an Emmy nomination.
When Buxton moved to Nashville from her native Kansas after high school graduation, she began school at Belmont University and co-founded Southern rock band Stoik Oak, who toured regionally. She signed her first publishing deal in her early 20s and not long after, inked a record deal with Lyric Street. Ultimately, that experience clarified her understanding of who she is and what she wants. “I think the reason I didn’t become a famous country singer was I wasn’t supposed to be a famous country singer,” Buxton says. “Simplicity––that’s what I hold on to.”
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