Sara K.

Her dad sang in a barbershop quartet, her mum sang in a church choir and growing up in Dallas meant Sara K was immersed in music. She taught herself to play on a broken guitar in her mid-teens, attaching four strings from a bass guitar to an old flamenco guitar, creating an unusual style with a deeper sound than normal. Once she'd started playing in local clubs and bars, the die was cast and she committed herself to a career in music. She sang with country bands in Dallas and also wrote jingles for local radio stations and formed her own band Sara K & The Boys Without Sleep, performing regularly in clubs in New Mexico and California and working closely with country star Gary Nunn.

Basing herself in Santa Fe she developed her own style, concentrating on being a singer-songwriter and, teaming up with guitarist Bruce Dunlap, she released her first album 'Gypsy Alley' in 1989, titled after the area in Santa Fe. Well received, it launched a string of critically acclaimed albums on the New York label Chesky Records, including 'Closer Than They Appear', 'Play On Words', 'Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin'' and 'Hobo'. She then signed to the German Stockfisch label, working with guitarist Chris Jones on the albums 'Waterfalls' (2001) and 'Hell Or High Water' (2006), but Jones died of Hodgkins Disease shortly after the latter's release. After revisiting her early songs on 'Made in the Shade' in 2009 she announced her retirement from music, saying the constant touring was "too much for too little" and she needed to rest. However, 'Horse I Used to Ride', a live recording from one of her old concerts in Germany, was released in 2015.