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| Sharon Little's Breakdown Debuts This Spring Perfect Time For A Breakdown is Sharon Little's debut national release and a signpost of a career very much on the ascent. The album, set for rush release May 27, was completed only one week before Sharon hit the road for a string of tour dates in support of Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett on the first leg of their Raising Sand North American Tour. June will see her join the tour for its second leg which includes stops in New York and Los Angeles. Sharon was chosen by the headliners for this supporting role over numerous other artists. Remarkably, it's only been since January of this year that the Philadelphia native has made the transformation from waitress to major concert attraction. Little has earned critical kudos for her earlier independently released recordings and club appearances, including a rave from Los Angeles area critic/HITS Magazine columnist Roy Trakin: "[Little possesses] a sultry croon capable of soothing, arousing or exploding into a Janis Joplin-esque howl when you least expect it ... By all rights, Little should be a big star." Helen Leicht of the influential Philadelphia radio station WXPN wrote of a recent live performance, "What soul! You always hope to be that moved by a concert." The songs on Perfect Time For A Breakdown were written by Sharon and her collaborator, Scot Sax, who co-produced the album with Mark Howard, noted for his work with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Lucinda Williams. The album's 11 tunes were inspired, in part by numerous, cross-country train adventures Little and Sax have experienced over the past two years. Those journeys further strengthened a musical and personal collaboration that began in 2006 with a meeting at Milkboy Coffee Shop in Philadelphia. As Sharon explains, "We knew we had each met our creative match within minutes of sitting down with each other. Scot and I found that we brought different approaches to songwriting, and discovered that each possessed what the other one needed. Before we met, we were two separate halves of a whole, and now, looking back, in each other we met ourselves." Sharon Little's musical passion and songwriting began as an outlet for her grief over the loss of a close friend at the age of 16. She sang backup for many Philadelphia bands and developed her style and burgeoning reputation while singing blues and jazz standards at local clubs to make ends meet. While she was gaining fans and earning compliments wherever she sang and played, Sharon credits her partnership with Scot for putting her career on track. "He was the first person experienced in the business who didn't just talk about what I should be doing - he actually did something about it." From co-writing and recording, to taking pictures and traversing the country with Sharon for low-paying gigs, Scot helped plot a course to where Sharon needed - - and deserved - to be. Two independent records and countless gigs across the U.S. brought Sharon to the attention of CBS Records who hotly pursued her after a brief performance at Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles in the summer of 2007. As CBS Records head Larry Jenkins explained, "It took all of two minutes of hearing Sharon sing and watching her perform for all of us to look at each other knowing that we would do everything possible to bring her to the label. We made it our mission to share her amazing artistry with the world." The whirlwind of recent activity has seen Sharon Little, a coffee shop waitress in January who became a recording artist in February. By April, she was earning standing ovations at major concert dates. Upcoming: the May release of Perfect Time For A Breakdown followed, in June, by a string of major market bookings with Page/Krauss/Burnett in support of the album's release. Don't, however, mistake Sharon Little for an overnight sensation. That's an understandable, but erroneous, conclusion to draw; the reality is that she's been honing her craft as a songwriter and performer for almost a decade. It's only that her time, clearly, has come and that time, by all indications, is now. write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Jazz News :: home page |