A Conversation with Sarah Hawker (continued)

PM: I'm going to get a few more particulars, if you'll allow me.

SH: [laughs] Sure.

PM: What were you like as a girl growing up? Is there any of that we want to cover in a different way? I mean, like how many kids were in your family?

SH: Well, I have two younger sisters. And I guess I was pretty much a wild child.

PM: Ah.

SH: There was like a lot of wildness and a lot of pain. And I've been getting around the edges of being able to do some kind of singing that addresses some of that.

PM: Wow.

SH: Yeah. So that's kind of the background of that. I really struggled, I'd say, like starting around twelve or so.

PM: Where was this, Ithaca or Woodstock, or neither?

SH: Neither. It was in Connecticut. So it was like a perfectly normal outside--you know the story.

PM: You looked normal.

SH: Yeah, yeah. And that was very painful for me. I never was a very good liar. I didn't have any interest in it. So I got in trouble a lot. I thought my version of what I thought should be happening was just as acceptable as any adult's.

PM: And so in school you were uncontrollable?

SH: Yeah, yeah.

PM: Girls' schools or regular schools or?

SH: No, regular schools.

PM: So that lasted into your late teens?

SH: Uh-huh, yeah, basically my late teens and early twenties. By the time I got around that age, I didn't have to run from whatever was so upsetting. It was sort of like, "Okay, I'm ready now to start to unpack." And that's what you do in college, that's what it's for, I think. That was when I started to write. I did a lot of creative writing, so I didn't come at songwriting altogether from nowhere. But I didn't come at it from a musical place.

PM: So where did you go to college?

SH: I went to Sarah Lawrence.

PM: So you may have been wild, but you were hella smart.

SH: [laughs] Yeah.

PM: When you got there, how did your wildness and your angst continue to manifest?

SH: Well, let's see, what can I say about that?

PM: Did you become a good student?

SH: I became an excellent student, because basically the one thing that Sarah Lawrence had, and the reason why I knew it was the only place for me, was that you pick your teachers and you pick your classes and you pick the things you want to learn. And I'm not good at being directed, because the first thing I'm going to say is "No" [laughs] before I even know what it is. It could be the best thing in the world, but...

PM: Right.

SH: So I just became under my own steam, and that was really what I needed. And they allowed for creativity and they allowed--I think I was the first student there that did a cross--I did an independent study, cross-study-areas performance piece that was a year-long project that I'd worked on, stuff like that. So they really allowed for me to do whatever I needed to do.

PM: What kind of a piece did you do? What were you after? What were you mixing up together?

SH: I mixed up everything. We did film that we shot, there was dance, we wrote music for it. I wrote most of the words. It was mostly like a poetic--it was a lot of monologue poetry kind of stuff.

PM: Oh, so you were a total artiste, kind of thing.

SH: Yeah, yeah, it was a whole thing. It was me and another woman together and we just collaborated and did this whole crazy piece. I just was always seeing the connections between my classes, so I was very interested in that.

PM: Right. Wow. And so where did college lead?

SH: Well, let's see, I went to Austin, Texas, for a while.

PM: After you were done with school, or?

SH: Yeah.

PM: What were you after there?

SH: I still had this urge--I had that whole location solution urge in my twenties, that if I could just get over here I'm going to be a better person.

PM: Right.

SH: And so it took me a while to figure that out. I was there for a couple years. And then I came back. I lived in New York City. I was there for like ten years.

PM: Where, in New York or Austin?

SH: In New York City. I had a lot of jobs that don't make any sense. Like in you put all the jobs I had together it wouldn't make any kind of sense. But I was just sort of tooling around.

PM: Finding out who you were, who you wanted to be.

SH: Yeah. See, I went to Austin, and then I went to New York City for a long time. And then we just left, so that's the recent thing.

PM: I know it sounds cliche, or it may sound trite to some, but I think that's really the business of living: finding out who you are and what you'd like to do. But many people just never get around to it.

SH: Right.

PM: They go to school, they get married, they get a job, and it's like, "What? I don't have time for any of that crap. I got a family." And what probably is the original intention of living a life gets completely bypassed in the process.

SH: Right. Well, I have this thing, since I was 18. I have this really good friend. He's actually in India right now on some weird trek. But when he was 18 he had a tag sale. He sold everything he owned and he just walked away. I admire that. And I have to say that because he was a guy, it was much more acceptable. And I wanted to do that, but there was all this fear, I mean, "A girl going off on her own? I mean, come on, you're 18 years old. You can't do that."

PM: Yeah, "What are you, a slut, or crazy?"

SH: Exactly. "Something terrible is going to happen to you. You may be a prostitute, or whatever." And I really believe that if I'd been a boy it would've been different.

PM: Right.

SH: So it kind of had to wait until I was graduated from college, and then I could do whatever I wanted. So it was a delayed need, as far as I was concerned. It was like, "Now I can get about the business of roaming and figuring it out."

PM: Right. Wow. And so the New York years ended up around when?

SH: Last fall, I left.

PM: Oh, wow! And so how did the New York years--oh, I guess how they led to your singing leads us back to the story where Jenny said, "Well, come on up to this camp," and you met Debra Clifford.

SH: Yep.

PM: So do you mean to say that not only this group, but the idea of your singing with any purpose behind it, all began as recently as that?

SH: When I was 31, or maybe 30.

PM: That's amazing.

SH: Yeah, it just hit me like a lightning bolt.

PM: You must be so tripped out right now. Just a number of years into this initiative, this new part of your life, and already you're getting out there in a remarkable way.

SH: Oh, yeah. I'm amazed every day. It's just unbelievable.

PM: So many people have embraced the duo, and you've already played for and played with so many amazing people.

SH: I know. It's unbelievable. I don't have any gauge for it. [laughs] I just show up. I don't really know what's going to happen. But it has all been amazing, totally amazing to me. When we first made a CD--I mean, everything we do is just an exercise in doing something because it's the work of living. When we first made a CD, I didn't think anybody'd listen to it. [laughs]

PM: Right.

SH: I mean, it was never really in my head. I remember the first time somebody wrote me an email--I think it was the second CD, and he said, "I was taking the boat from England over to Ireland, and I was listening to your CD." And he was telling me all about this. And I was like, "Man, how did I get over there? Like what is that?"

PM: Wow.

SH: Yeah, it was just cool. And we get really deep, deep emotional emails from people, maybe because of the kind of music that we're doing. But a lot of people who were just like, "You helped me when my mother passed away"--just intense, beautiful people sharing--I mean, they don't have to, and they just feel this urge to tell you these things. It's really amazing to us.

PM: And, in fact, my first exposure to your music did not happen in the usual way. It wasn't some publicist who sent me the records. It was a friend of mine, Mona Brittingham, who is a music aficionado, who was working at Folk Alliance. I think this particular one was in Montreal. And she saw you guys sing on some big stage. I called her today to remind her that she was the one who turned me onto the Lonesome Sisters. And she said, "Yeah, I remember." I said, "Well, have you looked at Puremusic this month?" She said, "No." I said, "Well, their record is reviewed and I'm going to speak with Sarah Hawker tonight." She said, "Oh, that's amazing." I said, "And it's because you sent me these records, Mona. And it took me a hell of a long time to get to them, but once I did, I was really floored."

SH: Yeah. We don't seem to do well in any normal channel. We do better just going from the organic place of, "What do I need to make a balanced good life? What beautiful thing can I add to the world?" These are the things.    continue

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