Sara K. – Hobo (1996)

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Sara (Sara Katherine Wooldridge) recalls having heard music constantly from an early age: “Everyone in my family sang as a hobby. My dad had a deep bass voice and used to sing in a barbershop quartet, while my mom was in a church choir. I was 15 when I started to play guitar, although my instrument is a bit different. I took the strings off a flamenco guitar and put on four bass strings, which makes the notes deeper than on a regular guitar, but not as low as a standard bass. When I was 17, I started playing in local clubs and bars and I received a good response; I knew immediately that this was what I wanted to do. There was a lull in acoustic solo acts during the late 1970s, but I stayed with it, doing studio work and putting together a band of my own. I also did backup work in Dallas for country music and local jingles.”

After spending time in New Mexico and Los Angeles as leader of Sara K. and The Boys Without Sleep between 1978-83, Sara hooked up with country recording artist Gary Nunn, and toured with him for over two years. “It was great fun and a valuable experience,” says Sara, “but my heart was really in writing and performing my own songs. So after I moved to Santa Fe, I met some good musicians and put out Gypsy Alley on Mesa/Bluemoon Records.”

Gypsy Alley teamed Sara with Bruce Dunlap, a guitarist from Santa Fe who has recorded two releases of his own with Chesky Records and helped bring her to the label. Sara, who still makes her home in New Mexico, was the proud recipient of the New Mexico Music Industry Coalition’s Best Album Award for Gypsy Alley. After being signed to Chesky, she recorded four critically acclaimed albums: Closer Than They Appear, Play On Words, Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’, and Hobo. In 1997, she completed a nearly sold-out tour of Germany with guitarist/arranger Hui Cox and worked on the soundtrack to the Kevin Costner movie The Postman. (press release Chesky Records)

She recorded six albums for Chesky.

She toured Europe and planned to moved to San Francisco but remained where she was. At the end of her contract with Chesky, she felt she had “been ripped off in many directions by labels and touring companies”.

On her last tour through Germany under the Chesky contract, the owner of the German label Stockfisch Records, Günter Pauler, was called to be her sound specialist. He gave her a tour of his studio and offered her a contract and the prospect of having guitarist Chris Jones as a guest musician.[3] Her first Stockfisch album, Water Falls (2001), was followed by a tour, which provided material for a live DVD and the album Live in Concert (2003). She won the Hi-Fi Music Award in 2003 from the German magazine Audio/Steoreoplay.

Her album Hell or High Water (2006) again featured Chris Jones on guitar and dobro. Jones died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma shortly after recording, before the album was released. Her fourth album for Stockfisch, Made in the Shade, came out in 2009, with new versions of songs from her debut album.

After the release of this album, she announced that she was going to quit the music business. In a note to her fans on her label’s website, she stated, “After many years on the road and writing music, I’ve decided to stop touring and recording. It’s hard to explain why but I hope you will understand. I had a good run but I think it’s over. It’s just too much for too little these days. Made in the Shade explains it as best as I know how.”

In 2015, Stockfisch published a live album called Horse I Used to Ride based on the recording of a solo concert in Sülbeck, Germany, on April 6, 2001. Out of habit, Günter Pauler, head of Stockfisch, had brought his mobile recording equipment to this concert. He asked Sara K. if he could record the concert, and she agreed. After that concert, Chris Jones added dobro guitar solos to these tracks in the studio. When Pauler sent the recordings to Sara K., she was thrilled. (wikipedia)

The music is ok, but the sound quality stinks. It reminds me of the sound we got when taping our choir in the local church with an mp3 recorder. (by Bruce)

Bruce’s opinion and approval are obscure at least. I’ve listen HOBO from net at first time, and purchase CD, it sounds much better. Cheskys 96Khz/24bit recordings are true audiophylle. Pro fully music delights, it’s required quality equipments and there are no mistakes. Great old songs like “Brickhouse” and “Oh Well” are amazing. Accoustic guitar, harmonica, retiring bass and percussions offers a straight live sensations. If you have an affection for naturaly sound, sans mixing, dubbing, electronics etc, your ears will be captured for a best award.
P.S. I’m a owner of ALL Saras recordings, and that’s most pleasurablly in my collection certainly. (by Vlada Neron)

I’ve only just recently discovered Sara k, The reason I have, is due to the the fact that I have a reference audio system and always on the look out for new quality sounds to play. Despite other reviews here I found the recording excellent with a great sound stage and a rich and realistic recording of some beautifully played acoustic instruments. I have another Sara cd and although I find some of her songs rather bland this CD. Contains some tracks that are a little more inventive especially tracks 1 & 7 which utilize diverse percussive sections to create a dynamic and absorbing experience, they are my current favorites from a collection of over 450 cd’s. Even if other tracks are not quite to my personal taste in their composition, the quality of the musicians performances and the recording itself make this CD a pleasure to listen to time after time. Listen, you wont regret it especially if you have a quality sound system. This leaves me confused as to one review here complaining about sound quality I can only imagine he/she has a problem with her/his equipment or the CD was not a genuine Chesky product. What ever the reason I would 100% disagree with his/her review.. (by Amatrix)

Personnel:
Hui Cox (guitar)
Bruce Dunlap (guitar)
William Galison (harmonica)
Randy Landau (bass)
Satoshi Takeishi (percussion)
+
Matthew Andrae (guitar, vocals on 09.)

Tracklist:
01. Me Missin` You (Wooldridge) 5.18
02. If I Don`t See You Later (Wooldridge) 3.48
03. Brick House (Richie/Williams/La Pread/McClary/Orange/King) 5.59
04. I Really Do (Wooldridge) 4.06
05. Written In Stone (Wooldridge) 3.35
06. You`ll Never Walk Alone (Hammerstein II/Rodgers) 3.11
07. Oh Well (Green) 2.37
08. Hobo (Wooldridge) 3.31
09. Oughtta Be Happy By Now (Andrae/Wooldridge) 5.06
10. I Couldn`t Change Your Mind 4.08
11. Sizzlin` (Wooldridge) 3.51
12. Moving Big Picture (Wooldridge) 4.40

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More from Sara K.:

Sara K. – Closer Than They Appear (1992)

From the time she first performed in front of an audience when she was 17 years old, singer/songwriter Sara K. knew she wanted to live her life making music. She followed her dream and stayed true to her desire, despite the fact that demand for acoustic solo performers was falling off as the end of the ’70s approached. Several avenues remained open to her, including fronting her own band, studio work, and backing country music artists, which she did in her hometown of Dallas, TX. She also found work locally singing jingles. From her childhood years on, music played an important part in her life. Her mother belonged to a choir at church, while her father sang bass as part of a barbershop quartet. She first took up the guitar at the age of 15, although her instrument wasn’t the standard one on which most youths begin. She started with a basic flamenco guitar and added four strings meant for a bass. The resulting hybrid didn’t produce notes as low as those normally produced by a bass, yet they were definitely lower than those made by a guitar.

After the early years in Texas, she took her band, Sara K. and the Boys Without Sleep, to Los Angeles and New Mexico. Beginning in 1973, she led the band for about ten years and she followed that up by spending more than two years on tour with country singerGary Nunn. The experience was a good one, but she longed to concentrate on crafting songs and performing her own compositions. She settled down in Santa Fe to work on her songs, putting together an album that eventually became Gypsy Alley and was released by Mesa/Bluemoon Records in 1982. The New Mexico Music Industry Coalition honored the release with an award for Best Album. Chesky Records signed her to a contract, and Sara K. went on to release four well-received albums: Hobo, Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’, Play on Words, and Closer Than They Appear. The singer/songwriter toured Germany in 1997 with Hui Cox, an arranger and guitar player. That same year, she also contributed to the soundtrack for The Postman. Two years later, No Cover was issued featuring Chuck Mangione on one of the tracks. The live album was recorded in New York City inside St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, making the most of the soaring interior’s dynamite acoustics. What Matters followed in 2001. (by Linda Seida)

Sara stands in a class by herself. I know of no one to whom to compare her. The custom four-string guitar leaves something unspoken in the harmony, allowing Sara’s voice to weave a tapestry in and out of the spaces left for it. Her lyrics in these songs are heart-to-heart; she is as open, honest, and observant as Joni Mitchell, but as different from her musically as night and day. And she has plenty of sass and tongue-in-cheek cleverness at her disposal. Her solitary cover on this album is Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”. Hearing her cover is like really hearing it for the first time. (by Wayne Scott)

What more could you ask-lovely lyrics that improve with each listen, great sound, and a unique, heartfelt voice. This is perhaps my favorite of her recordings, although the later Stockfish records may get the voice a little better. I don’t understand why she seems to have disappeared from audiophile reviews. (by Stephen A. Degray)

Sara K. has been in my CD collection since early 1993. I never tire of her breathy cadillac intonations. Sara K. is like a fine single-malt under an air condtioner on a blistering July afternoon in the midwest, with depth second only to few in her genre. (by Sharky Green)

Personnel:
Billy Drewes (saxophone)
Bruce Dunlap (guitar)
David Finck (bass)
Jamey Haddad (drums)
Sara K. (ocals, guitar)

Tracklist:
01. Miles Away 2.51
02. Trust Somebody 3:41
03. Hidden From View 3:28
04. Make Believe 2:34
05. What’s A Little More Rain 4:52
06. If You Close That Door 3.54
07. Jasmine 3.56
08. Wanna Spend More Time 4.05
09. Tecolote-Eyes 3.54
10. Alejaté 3.26
11. Something Borrowed 1.12
12. When I Didn’t Care 4.43
13. Steam Rises 3.06
14. Like A Rolling Stone 6.59

All songs was written by Sara K.
except 14, which was written by Bob Dylan

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German Promo Sheet

More from Sara K.:

And this is her website:

Various Artists – Chesky Records – Promotional Sampler (1992)

It all started in 1978 when a young composer/musician named David Chesky, who was beginning a career on Columbia Records, found himself frustrated with the lack of artistic control afforded by his position. He asked his business partner and younger brother Norman if he thought they should start their own record company. But what did these two young men who had made their way from Miami to New York at a tender age know about running a business? Frankly, not much. But what the brothers may have lacked in corporate acumen they made up for with a burning passion to create great music and great sounds, and the desire to to create new and exciting ways to capture and reproduce music.

And so, Chesky Records was born. Norman remembers: “We wanted to please both musical connoisseurs and the high-end audiophiles by signing some of the best musicians in the world, and then capturing their live performances with the latest and best technology.” Adds David, “I would walk into a recording studio and see fifty microphones set up. When I realized that people don’t hear music that way, and that musicians play differently when they are recorded like that, I decided that if we ever started a company, it was going to have a different and unique recording philosophy.” By 1986, David was traveling to universities and talking to scientists and engineers about the parameters of recording capabilities. This was also the year that he had the honor of being introduced to the great classical pianist Earl Wild, who not only gave the younger musician some pointers on composition and performance, but also the opportunity to listen to the master tapes of one of his famous Rachmaninoff recordings from the Reader’s Digest series. David was so impressed by what he heard that he and Norman struck a deal with Wild and Reader’s to re-issue the work on audiophile-quality vinyl. The Cheskys had saved every nickel to build a custom mixer and tube tape recorder that would bring the original glory out of older recordings. The bid was successful, and the ensuing release was met with such widespread critical success that we were able to reissue the other Reader’s recordings and then do the same with a number of orchestral works on RCA.

David Chesky

The next step would prove to be even more difficult than the first. We had to show that they were capable of not only producing wonderful reissues, but first-rate original recordings as well. Renting out the legendary RCA Studio A, we set up their custom-built equipment and recorded jazz violinist Johnny Frigo, followed in short succession by long-admired jazzmen Clark Terry and Phil Woods. As these initial efforts garnered raves from jazz fans and audiophiles alike, we managed to build a formidable roster of Latin American talent: Luiz Bonfa, Grammy-winning clarinet and alto saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, and vocalist Ana Caram. The Chesky catalog has grown steadily ever since, and includes jazz legends Peggy Lee, Herbie Mann, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner, adult contemporary artists Livingston Taylor, Kenny Rankin, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sara K., John Pizzarelli, and Christy Baron, classical keyboard masters Earl Wild and Igor Kipnis, and world music innovators Orquesta Nova, celebrated guitarist Badi Assad, Carlos Heredia, and I Ching.

Along with the excitement over showcasing famous musicians and establishing newer ones came significant technical advances in the recording process. Chesky Records was the first company to use 128x Oversampling to achieve previously unheard levels of fidelity, while utilizing the finest analog-to-digital converters to attain what came to be known as High Resolution Recordings. As well as the first independent American record label to record using the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) technology. The recently introduced first recordings made with 96kHz/24-bit components had astonished even the hardest-to-please audiophiles. At the same time that Chesky had been pushing the very boundaries of recorded music, we also reached our greatest artistic triumph. Paquito D’Rivera’s third Chesky release, Portraits of Cuba, a beautiful collection of jazz interpretations of Cuban folksongs, won the 1997 Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Performance, beating out a slew of major-label competitors. Chesky Records has its collective eye on the horizon.

Norman Chesky

Today Chesky continues to strive to broaden our audience while staying fast to our commitment to use the finest technology available to deliver beautiful music and develop the listening pleasures of tomorrow today. Our Binaural+ Series recordings sound great on headphones and speakers, and capture the sound of music as you would if you were sitting in front of the band. Recorded in high-resolution 192-kHz/24-bit sound with a special Binaural head (a “dummy” human head with specially calibrated microphones where the ears would be). Now headphone users can also hear the same three-dimensional sound and imaging as audiophiles have for the past 25 years with Chesky Recordings capturing even more spatial realism for the home audiophile market, bringing you one step closer to the actual event.

Now, with our sister company HDTracks.com, we are giving users the ability to purchase music as high-resolution audiophile quality downloads. HDTracks not only has the entire Chesky records catalog but a wide variety of all the music you love from Led Zepplin to Beethoven and eveything in-between. Think I-tunes, only HIGH-RES! (take from the “Official website”)

Tracklist:
01. Sara K:.Miles Away 2.47
02. Kenny Rankin: Haven’t We Met ? 3.02
03, Paquito D’Rivera: Havana Cafe 6.34
04. Orquesta Nova:Serenata 4.33
05. Fred Hersch: Heartsong 5.55
06. McCoy Tyner::Recorda Me 9.48
07. Kenny Rankin: What Am I Gonna Do With You…Aime? 5.37
08. Bruce Dunlap: Spokes 6.10
09. Orquesta Nova: Oblivion 4.15
10. Fred Hersch: Child’s Song 7.07
11. Bruce Dunlap: Tesuque 4.16
12. Tom Harrell: Touch The Sky 6.40
13. Sara K.:Trust Somebody 3.40

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