Sarah Sharp

I wrote this song with Hannah Johnson from the Toy Hearts. Just found it on my phone & Buffalo Speedway helped me add chords & make this little demo.  Hanna & I made it up while we were driving back to Birmingham, UK from a gig at the Fighting Cocks in Stottesdon. I didn't remember that we had written this until I started listening back to the last few months ideas a few nights ago. 

Your girlfriend hates me, you know it’s true
I tried to tell her, it’s not me, it’s you
The way you play her is kinda cruel
Making eyes at every other woman who walks into the room

She shows up acting like she’s all sweet and bashful 
telling everyone she’s with the band
She’s shooting daggers at me through her false eyelashes 
Cuz she don’t know how to keep her man

Your girlfriend’s crazy and she’s wasting my time
cuz if I wanted you, you’d already be mine. 

Your Girlfriend Hates Me

Guitar vocal duet, inspired by Peggy Lee's version.  This was a quick demo this morning, just sitting next to Mitch in the control room of his studio.  We slapped down a take so that Mitch could write us a chart to play it next week at Continental Club.  I'm quite fond of this!  I'm honored to play with Mitch. We wrote a song together this morning as well. :)

Oh What a Beautiful Morning - with Mitch Watkins

Hannah Johnson & I wrote this song last night. She wants to call it "Morning Cocktail".  Buffalo Speedway on guitar.

Shake me up, shake me up something strong
Cold, numb like you want me
Stone cold as you drug me all along
You know that you could hardly wait until the dawn
Certain you should serve me
With a splash of you don’t deserve me after all

So sure you might run out of time
Searching for some meaning
With love so demeaning
You use others to carry your pain
You’re determined to 
Live your life on all alone
Just know that when you drank me
I was yours for the taking
I was home

Were you scared you might burn in the light
Knowing true meaning
Of two souls careening
There’s such pain that you carry 
You’re only determined
To live your life all alone
Know that when you drank me
I was yours completely 
That was home


Morning

From the upcoming Jitterbug Vipers album - Phoebe's Dream
I wrote this with Kristopher Lee Wade
Slim Richey – Guitar 
And his Hidy Hidy Hos:
Sarah Sharp – Vocals
Francie Meaux Jeaux – Bass
Masumi Jones – Drums


When You're High

From the upcoming Jitterbug Vipers album "Phoebe's Dream"
I wrote this with Elizabeth McQueen & She is singing harmony. 

STUFF IT
Well if you’re feeling low & you don’t know why
Having trouble just getting by 
Check your pipe, is it cashed? oh my!
Stuff it

Now if that don’t work, you’re still feeling small
The boys don’t whistle & they never call
Don’t waste your time, honey check your bra
Girl, you need to stuff it

Oh, just stuff it, you can just stuff it, 
Oh stuff it
Baby, it’s all about stickin it in 

You’re looking hungry, have you been on a diet
I just a 12 course meal, you should try it
Put it all in that gate mouth, even the pie
And stuff it

Oh, just stuff it, you can just stuff it, 
Oh stuff it
Baby, it’s all about stickin it in 

Awww..., you’re kitty died? 
You can stuff your cat
It’s your red wagon if you’re into that
I’m just trying to help, with what works for me
You can stuff  it’s empty

Now you can stuff your turkey, you can stuff your pet
You can stuff your mattress, stuff your wallet 
I think I’m all out of stuff to stuff
I’m just trying to help with your depression
And if that don’t work, I have one last suggestion
You can stuff it


Stuff It - Jitterbug Vipers

Jitterbug Vipers - Slim Richey - Guitar & His Hidy Hidy Hos: Francie Meaux Jeaux - Bass, Masumi Jone - Drums, me singing.

I wrote this with Kristopher Lee Wade from Ghosts Along the Brazos. 

A Viper Just The Same

I wrote this with Kristopher Lee Wade. We were trying to think of what the girl's name should be... something from the 1930s, 40s, like Maude, but I wanted it to be 2 syllables.  The night we tried to play this song live for the first time at Lambert's, our dear friend Phoebe Hunt showed up, so I put her name in, just for the night. It stuck and we ended up naming the album after this track. 

Adder on a Ladder (Phoebe’s Dream)

Did you ever hear the story of dear Phoebe?
She thought she found her way up off the ground
She tried to smoke her way up into heaven
But they turned her back around

She was bitten by an adder on a ladder to the sky
She was trying to get higher, didn't need no reason why
The vipers loved to watch her move
Up, up, up she climbed
Man, that girl was smokin’, my oh my, so high, high so high

Well, I guess she never figured that she’d ever come back down
But she must have met her maker and her turned her back around
He said, “Darlin’, don’t you get me wrong, a viper knows no bounds
But sometimes, the only way back up is down, down, down”
Down, down, down

She dreamed about a ladder 18 stories high
That’s where she met an adder, he said
“Come with me, Grab a stick of tea, You’re going right up to the sky”

When dear Phoebe woke from her dream, she was lying on the ground
With a hazy, lazy feeling and a viper hanging ‘round
He handed her a light, got a sparkle in his eye
And before you know it, She was high so high, high so high



Phoebe's Dream

The Jitterbug Vipers give their own take on "Undecided", a song which hit the pop charts in a version by the Ames Brothers in the early 1950s but actually dates back decades earlier.

Undecided

Billie's Blues

“Watching Sarah perform onstage is pretty analogous to the experience of being bewitched by a musical sorceress: conversational, charming, organic, at times whimsical and crazy, and always utterly captivating. When Sharp arrives, you listen.” – Songwriters Across Texas

Sarah Sharp has long been honored for her skills as a jazz singer. That is evident in her accolades. In February 2024, Austin’s premier Jazz singer, won her third Austin Music Award presented by the Austin Chronicle for Best Jazz.  But make no mistake – she also is a soulful songwriter and so much more. She masters Americana, Pop, and old-school country music, while exploring other sounds and collaborations. And, its hard to not fall in love with her whole persona. As one reviewer wrote, she’s a little bit Tina Fey. 

No matter what genre she sings, it will be authentically Sarah, and you’re going to get a well-rounded performance that has you both mesmerized and fully entertained. 

Talent comes honestly for the Houston-born and raised performer. “I grew up in a big Catholic family where I thought it was normal for people to end every gathering playing songs and singing four-part harmony.” It wasn’t until much later that she realized not everyone had a similar musical upbringing. 

Audiences can feel, in her unique style, traces of her musical influences. “We sang everything from show tunes to James Taylor,” she says, adding that she counts the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Aretha Franklin, The Pointer Sisters, The Police, Sting, and Rolling Stones among other early influence. She credits songwriters Willis Alan Ramsey, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, Eminem, and Beyonce for having a soulful impact.

Although a devoted ballet student, Sarah ultimately followed her passions to attend Berklee College of Music, the world’s preeminent college for the study of music. There, she began to lean on the best of the best to feed her jazz inclinations – Billy Holiday, and even more deeply, Etta James singing the songs of Billie Holiday in the record “Mystery Lady.”

Sarah carries all of her influences and her passion for music to the audiences she reaches and the performers with whom she works side by side.

“There is a flow, almost like a reciprocal loop, when the audience is truly connected, that both fills me up and allows me to give more. When the audience is there and we are connected, it elevates everything,” she says. 

As for her band and collaborators, Sarah says she has a deep love and appreciation for them and is honored to be making music with them. “There is a true love fest going on between us all on stage,” she says of her band, who she describes as quintessential jazz musicians. They are immensely talented in a way that allows them to bring a vital sense of improvisation to the music they make. “They never play a song the same way twice.”

In the co-writing realm, Sarah has had many successes. She wrote nine original songs on the Jitterbug Vipers’ “Phoebe’s Dream”. That caught the attention of NPR’s Michael Feinstein who flew them to New York City to be featured on his national radio show. Sarah also has written with Yaniel Matos, Mitch Watkins, Elizabeth McQueen, Katie Shore, Jacob Jeager, Kristopher Lee Wade and Matt Hubbard, among others.

As with her recent Austin Music Awards win, enthusiastic accolades have followed Sarah through her career including multiple awards for her singing and songwriting. The self-produced album “Phoebe’s Dream,” with then-band Jitterbug Vipers, earned Sharp Top 5 placements in Austin Music Awards categories for Best Female Vocalist, Producer, Songwriter, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Band of the Year, and Best Jazz Band. Sarah also was a (two times, once with Jitterbug Vipers, and once as Sarah) top recipient of the Black Fret Award (now Sonic Guild) from the organization supporting “the creation and performance of extraordinary new music.”

“It’s so clear that the music you create is so inspired by your environment,” says NPRs Michael Feinstein. Of her song “Trouble,” Feinstein adds, “That is the kind of song that has such a classic quality to it and it’s a song that could have been written a long time ago, and yet it speaks so much to the world now, and I think it will speak to people whenever it’s heard.”

Sarah now has a library of songs she is eager to put into her next record. She is looking forward to a new era of Sarah Sharp.

Billie's Blues

SarahSharp