In Conversation with Colin: Sari Schorr

Sari Schorr is not just another talented artist, her songs are compelling and motivating, the strength of her voice plays a big part in her ability to capture and maintain an audience’s attention. It allows her to project the sound to a larger space, ensuring everyone in the audience can hear and feel the music, and that remarkable ability will be on display at Acapela, Cardiff on Tuesday May 7th.  

Newport City Radio’s Colin Palmer caught up with Sari a few days before her Welsh appearance for a quick chat. 

In 2016, Sari first burst onto the blues-rock scene with her critically acclaimed debut album A Force Of Nature, produced by iconic British blues pioneer Mike Vernon (Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall). 

On stage, Sari is indeed ‘a force of nature,’ a moniker that stuck since legendary producer Vernon first used the term to describe her while producing her debut album. Released ten years ago, the album featured amongst others Walter Trout. 

By coincidence Walter Trout is also appearing in Cardiff the same night as Sari but in a different venue. “Wow, I didn’t know,” she says. “Walter and I have done a lot of work together, we’ve toured together and did a fantastic show together in New York at Carnegie Hall for the ‘Lead Belly’ tribute and Walter was a guest on my debut album with a song that he had written for his mom. We have a long history.” 

Another coincidence that totally surprised and delighted Sari was when I told her I was interviewing Robin Trower the next day. Amid hoots of laughter Sari told me “you’ll have a good time, he’s really easy to talk to. We’re both very proud of the Joyful Sky album, and honestly it never even occurred to either of us to think about chart position when we were recording or even after it was released. We just wanted people to love it as much as we did. I had a phone call from the president of Mascot Records saying ‘congratulations you’re number 1’ and that was so far from anything that was on our minds. We did work that we were proud of and we just wanted to share it with people who hopefully would enjoy it.” 

Sari’s humble beginnings found her working the music scene in the legendary fierce South Bronx of New York and on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to live performances at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall and mainstream TV appearances in the States. 

On her current UK tour Sari is road testing songs from her album set for release in the autumn. “This tour has been unlike any other tour we’ve done because we’re doing brand new songs from a new album and it’s a big ask of an audience to come and listen to an entire album’s worth of new material. Even when an artist releases a new record generally they will only play maybe five cuts from the new record and mix in the other material. The entire first half of the show is just the new album, but the songs are playing really well and the audiences are loving the songs so I really couldn’t have asked for more.” 

Sari mixes a passion for music with a duty of social responsibility. She has devoted her talent and energy to music projects of a grand scale for humanitarian causes. Most notable is her work on a ‘Toast To Freedom’ for Amnesty International, where she collaborated with many musical legends including Warren Haynes, Keb Mo’, Taj Mahal, Eric Burdon, and Carly Simon. Sari’s humanitarian efforts include work in Haiti and India. She founded ‘Matters’ – a non-profit that draws attention to humanitarian causes through the arts. Sari is a marathon runner and animal rights activist. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and rescued pit bull triplets. 

“I love being on tour in the UK,” she tells me. “I find people are beautiful wherever you go, the cities are fascinating and I love the culture here. Every time we pull up in a city I’m really excited to be there but it’s really all about the fans who show us so much love and support across the tour and keep us energised and keep us going”.  

I ask Sari if she is in effect road-testing the songs prior to finalising the track listing for the new album. “Exactly”, she says, “because no matter how great you think the songs are, and we have worked and re-worked and honed them to a point where we feel as if they are ready to be presented to an audience, but you can’t anticipate what songs are going to resonate with people but of course they resonate with me because I’ve written them. I try to tap into themes and subjects that are going to be universally relatable and I’m very grateful that the responses have been favourable.” 

Although the new album is some way from being released I’m curious about their subject matter. “Well the songs are about the struggles of being an artist, songs about New York and the sacrifices we all make in order to pursue the things we love that always comes with a trade-off, and how you sometimes have to give something up in order to get something else. But there are also fun songs too, and there’s a sarcastic song too which is unusual. I’ve written one other sarcastic song that’s on the Never Say Never album, it’s called ‘Thank You’, and it’s a very sarcastic thank you. But this one is called ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’…since you’ve been gone I’ve spent all your money / since you’ve been gone life’s sweeter than honey.”  

There is no doubt that this charismatic blues singer can really sing and she is loaded with talent. Audiences should be prepared to be taken on a journey, with a voice that is sometimes gritty, filled with passion and angst yet capable of delivering some tender moments which show off her versatile range, hitting notes that many would envy.  

Colin Palmer