Last week, singer songwriter Sarah Fimm and I chatted via Skype about what drew her into music, her teachers and mentors, helping young artists, her new album Near Infinite Possibility, and her life in music. She was extremely gracious and candid, and a delight to talk with. She confirmed my belief that the things that are important to artists and teachers do not change with the genre. I have described some of our conversation in this post and you can click on the video link to watch the rest of our talk, which includes the hilarious story of meeting her first teacher as well as some very wise words for students, teachers, and all who would be artists. (and yes, next time I promise to use an external mic and not to have a cold)

Sarah’s Mother was a pianist and music was important to her family. “They sang.” Growing up, her Mother would play classical music “and there was Mozart and there was Beethoven, and there was Bach.” The family also had a broken radio on which they randomly listened to whatever music happened to be on. Her Grandfather was playing everything from Dizzy Gillespie to Jenko Reinhardt, Billy Holliday and all the old swing music.

Sarah’s father loved Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, and all the singers of the ‘60s. Her older brother was deeply into Megadeth, Alice in Chains, and “Everything that would anger a parent.” It’s no wonder that Sarah’s music is described as drawing influences from such diverse styles as Chopin, Bach. Leonard Cohen, Tori Amos, and Alice in Chains among others. When I asked her how these diverse styles come together for her the answer was,”One can only guess.”

When I asked her about the great mentors in her life, Sarah talked a bit about her teacher Franko Richmond who she described as  “a great, great man.” He became her piano teacher when she was 17. “No colleges were going to take me because I hadn’t had lessons formally.” After she had studied with him for 3 months she submitted a tape and was accepted. “There a whole other world was opened up.”

Then, she turned the conversation away from teachers and talked about mentoring in quite a different way, “I surround myself with people I love and I want to learn from. You become like family.” Sarah’s musical family includes her heroes and collaborators Earl Slick, Josh Freese, Paul Bushnell, Sarah Lee, John Andrews, and Danny Blume.

Sarah is certainly not afraid of the darker side of human life- in fact she celebrates it. The song Yellow from her new album has been described as a constant shifting palette of reality obscuring the difference between dreams and waking life. She tells the story of being confronted with mental illness when a friend was suddenly afflicted.

“It was the first real tangible experience I had with someone that was paranoid, schizophrenic, chronically depressed, and under great duress.” She decided to get through it by writing music. She is passionate about the need for our society to discuss mental illness and not try to pretend that it doesn’t exist. “ I think it’s important that people talk about it- I really do. We’re too quiet about these things.”

Of course, everybody wants to know the story behind Sarah’s name—so I asked her! She told me that when she was still in school, she had poured herself and every cent she had into producing her first album and one day her manager called her up and said that they couldn’t release her record because another girl had the same name as she and had trademarked her real name. “I had what was called a conniption fit. What do you mean??? I can’t sell music under my own name???”

Back at college, she was sitting in her dorm room, depressed and trying to sort out what she was going to do, when there was a knock at the door. When she opened it there was this angelic girl who looked like Alice in Wonderland standing there. “Her name was Juniper, and she says, Are you Sarah? I hear you’re having a problem with your name and I think you should be called Sarah Fimm because you’re an angel.” Then Juniper said, “OK Bye” and Sarah never saw her again. Later, when another friend suggested the same name and she said “All right that’s it. There’s my name!”

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