No matter how much time passes, it always seems to catch up with you. For Sara Jean Stevens, those fleeting moments became a rich source of inspiration for her sophomore EP, Lovesick. Out February 14, the four layered tracks bring hints of country, folk, roadhouse and singer-songwriter poetry, and continue exploring her unique voice in Americana.
On the pensive title track, padded with delicate lap steel and earnest vocals, Stevens pleads over and over, "I look for you in cold strange places." It’s a search that has eclipsed her for years. "I wrote the song 20 years ago, and have never even played it live. It’s like it had to marinate deep in my cells for two decades before it was ready to see the world," she says.
To be fair, in those two decades, Stevens has been busy. The Chicago-based artist – who grew up on a horse farm in the flatlands of Illinois and began taking classical voice and piano lessons as a child before picking up the guitar at 18 – had a lucrative career touring the world as part of top-line ensembles before choosing to find her own place in music. Her solo material has been hailed as a mix of Emmylou Harris and Mazzy Star and described as music for the loners, the hopeless romantics and the dreamers. In the past couple of years, her sound has caught the attention of acclaimed roots, rock, country and folk artists like John Hiatt, Rhett Miller (Old 97s), The Wood Brothers, Nora O’Connor and Whitehorse who have called on Stevens to open for them.
On the upbeat foot-stomping Lovesick track "Swamp Angel Road," this time, Stevens’ life ruminations brought her back to a place from childhood that she thought she finally escaped. "It’s an actual road up by the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. We used to drive it when I was a kid. I wrote this song a few months ago, after I took my kids swimming in Lake Geneva like my mom used to take me. It’s sort of about growing up in a place you couldn’t wait to leave, then you end up back there one day." The idea stuck when it came time to pick a name for her full backing band, known as Sara Jean Stevens & the Swamp Angels, who have their own full-length album planned for 2025.
In addition to a deft cover of country star Gene Watsons’ "Fourteen Carat Mind," a song Stevens is "obsessed with," there’s also Lovesick’s first single, "Thaw." It’s a track Stevens calls, "my love song for the black hills," explaining that, in a past life when she was 21, she was a "wild, young hemp activist living in South Dakota... I moved there to work alongside the Lakota Indian tribe, fighting for their right to grow hemp as a crop. I spent my free time playing shows and exploring the black hills. That area of the country has imprinted on me like nowhere else. There’s a magic you can’t explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves."
In their premiere of "Thaw," Americana Highways heralds the song’s "backdrop of darkness and foreboding" nature, comparing it to the layers of folklore Stevens tapped into when recording her new EP in Water Valley, Mississippi, at the storied Dial Back Sound studios, owned by Matt Patton (Drive-By Truckers, Laura Jane Grace and the Mississippi Medicals, The Dexateens, Model Citizen).
It's the second EP that Patton worked on with Stevens, helping to tighten up the songs live in studio in just two days. "Not only is Matt an incredible bass player, he’s also a really great person. He has a way of pulling together the most hard-working, kind folks who make the recording process seamless," Stevens says. In addition to Patton, other collaborators on Lovesick include guitarist Taylor Hollingsworth, a solo artist and member of Conor Oberst’s band. "A few days before I flew down to Mississippi, Taylor released his newest album, Yahola, and I absolutely freaked out over his guitar tone. I asked him to bring that sound and energy to the table, and he definitely delivered," says Stevens. There’s also Kell Kellum who added pedal steel, Jason Lucia on drums and Saviour Sallah, a young piano player in the Water Valley area, who played organ. Lovesick was engineered and mixed by Starling Browning.
Perhaps one of the biggest transformations for Stevens on this new album came not from a life memory but rather a new revelation about her own self. "This is the first recording I’ve done since being diagnosed AuDHD (Autistic and ADHD)," she shares. "It’s like I’m experiencing music and songwriting through a new lens of understanding, and ultimately, with more compassion for my own brain and heart. I’ve gone through such a transformation within myself and the best way for me to process it all is through songwriting."
