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Sarah White – “Different Drum” (*out February 17*)

Though Michael Nesmith’s recent passing has left a hat-sized hole in the hearts of music fans everywhere this past year, his music’s transcendence radiates still, through the hallowed halls of music history. That same creative spirit informed Richmond, Virginia’s own Sarah White, whose reverence and unadulterated creativity emanate from her newest single and video, a cover of the Nesmith-penned “Different Drum,” famously popularized by Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys. 

Hot off of her 2018 release High Flyer, White takes the retro-pop of Ronstadt’s rendition and flips the script, replacing the shimmy of the original with rollicking Americana, offering an idiosyncratic modern take on an irrefutable classic. Removing the distinctive harpsichord of the original and supplanting it with Byrds-indebted chiming guitars, this 2022 update leans heavily into White’s robust aching voice, the clarity of which adds a heartbreaking lucidity to the song’s narrative, emphasizing the type of liberated sexual politics that too often have been overlooked by the song’s tunefulness.

The unapologetic femininity and independence on display, backed by the rootsy stylings of her band, nails the zeitgeist of 2021, using the past to embolden the present. Nowhere is this fruitful dichotomy more apparent than in the accompanying video, a mash-up of psychedelic filters vacillating between images of White, stuck at home during the pandemic, singing out to her adoring fan base, and old footage, bathed in the patina of the early 20th century. 

The genesis of the song originated in White’s Kickstarter – one tier of which allows fans to request song covers – where a super-fan requested White’s rendition of the ‘67 classic. After getting her players together to record a live rendition of it, the band quickly became smitten with their version’s euphoric energy and bluesy longing. Her High Flyer producer, upon hearing her version, insisted that she should record it in-studio, giving her loyal fans the pristine and powerful version they deserve. 

Taking on such an established classic might be formidable for less seasoned musicians, but White, who is entering her third decade on the music scene, navigates “Different Drum” with such confidence and expertise, it may even surprise fans of Ronstadt that the song isn’t a White original.

First popping onto the scene in 1997 with her Jagjaguwar debut, White wrote a collection of lonely and rustic tunes dubbed All My Skies Are Blue. The album – the third album ever on the Jagjaguwar label – and it’s cavernous beauty even predicted the sound later crystallized by the label with releases by artists Bon Iver, Okkervil River, and Angel Olsen. This release instigated opportunities opening for Hall and Oates before recording her first studio album (also for Jagjaguwar) titled Bluebird, which garnered stellar reviews. 

Seeing more opportunity for growth and to follow her muse, White soon began releasing records on her own, following Bluebird with the self-released You’re It EP (2004), followed by White Light [with the Pearls] (2006), all the while attending graduate school in Charlottesville. Along the way her brand of stripped down Americana earned the attention of music royalty Dave Matthews, who would come to accompany White on High Flyer’s “Sweetheart,” and for a time, Michael Bishop (Gwar) even joined her band the Pearls. 

Though her touring schedule has quieted down significantly since the pandemic, White intends on keeping some skin in the game by periodically playing shows and offering releases when inspired. For the time being though, fans will have to subsist on this stirring rendition of a timeless classic.

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