Sara Hickman | Praise for "Motherlode"

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Aug. 23, 2006, 5:26PM
Sara Hickman shows her dark side on Motherlode

By EILEEN MCCLELLAND
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Sara Hickman says she has a dark side.

The creator of whimsical children's albums and sunny pop-folk ballads is out to prove her edge with a new, stylistically diverse double album, Motherlode.

One disc is solemn (depression, insomnia, addiction and spousal abuse); the other celebrates a woman's soul as manifested in birdsong, motherhood and longings for love.

"People think I'm too positive or too happy," Hickman said. "I don't know why there's a problem with that. With this album, I've tried to release some of the darker sides of me. But my music's pretty much at the core stayed the same — it's about finding the hope in these small scenarios."

Hickman, 43, grew up in Houston, graduating from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Her mother is a fiber artist, her father an art professor at the University of Houston. It's natural she is a painter as well as a songwriter.

"My dad was always, always, always painting, and my mom was always, always weaving," she said. "God forbid you ever said you were bored. They would hand you clay or paint and say, 'Make something.' "

She graduated from the University of North Texas in Denton with a bachelor's degree in fine art and pursued a singing career, first in Dallas, later in Austin.

She released her first album, Equal Scary People, on her own, which led to a record deal with Elektra. Shortstop was released in 1990, but Elektra shelved her next project, Necessary Angels. Hickman and her fans raised $50,000 to buy the songs back, and she released it herself. Subsequent albums were released on her own label, Sleeveless.

For the past five years, continuing to show an independent streak, she's been writing and performing music for children — even newborns — as she has settled into family life with her husband, Lance Schriner, and two daughters, now 6 and 11.

"Never be afraid to make music with children, because you're passing on a great gift," she says. She released three albums — Newborn, Toddler and Big Kid.

The children's music has become so popular that sometimes, when she plays at bars, confused families show up expecting something altogether different — Remember Your Name and Address, for example, from Toddler. She has to make it clear she'll be playing "adult" music, even if that description makes it sound risqué.

Last year, when she resumed writing for adults, the concept for Motherlode, as well as its title, came to her as if magically, in a dream. "It was a complete joy to make this record," she said.

Her favorite song on the album is The Song of You, about her great-great-great-grand-parents, Abigail and President John Adams (G-pop-4, as she calls him), and how they stayed in touch during long separations. "They wrote all these prolific love letters to each other," she said.

Other ideas for Motherlode came from being a mother and from social issues. Twenty Years to Life is about a woman convicted of the murder of her abusive husband.

"I wanted to make an album that talks about my feelings as a musician and a mom," she said. "People assume that women who become moms don't read or talk about politics anymore, but moms are some of the most educated, interesting people to know."

Guest vocalists on the album include Kelly Willis, Shawn Colvin, Ruthie Foster and Jimmy LaFave. The style meanders through a diverse musical landscape of funk, pop, country, folk-rock and soulful jazz.

Motherlode's two moods are tied together both by Hickman's sweet, clear voice and by the theme of womanhood that pervades the work. The musically upbeat Stupid Love is about the ups and downs of a long-term relationship.

Another standout on the "happy" disc is the lilting love song Learn You Like a Book by Colin Boyd and Tricia Mitchell.

Hickman explains her bipolar strategy: "Usually I'm euphoric and happy. I love nesting and being with my family and friends. I enjoy my husband and our sex life, but then there's this other side of me which seems like a kind of universal woe — where I get very affected by what I read in the paper, by homelessness and child abuse and neglect. I feel like one voice in this sea of humanity, in a world that can be depressing and hard and confusing and sometimes terrifying."

Concern for the world has also led Hickman to donate her time to Safe Place, Habitat for Humanity, House the Homeless, the SPCA, the Race for the Cure and other animal- and human-rights organizations.

But sometimes she's just struggling with personal demons. She wrote the song To a Maddening Ghost about her insomnia. "I decided if I personified it, maybe it would go away," she said, "but it just wants more songs."

Twelve of the 20 songs are covers, including a spaced-out version of the Rolling Stones' Mother's Little Helper, about addiction. "I can't believe that's never been recorded by a woman," she said. "It seems so natural."

Despite the edge, Hickman still has fun. She encourages live audiences to whistle along on Amy Rigby's blunt, quirky Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again? — a song from the sunnier side of Motherlode.

Hickman feels that she's come into her own in her 40s.

"I feel more comfortable in my skin," she said. "I used to feel like I was outside looking in, which is the only way I can describe it. Now I feel like I'm part of the party; I opened the door and let myself in."

Sara Hickman has amassed an impressive career up to this point, but with Motherlode, she can claim an album that ought to mark here as an artist for the ages. A two-CD set based loosely around the concept for femininity and all the hopes, virtues and anguish that implies, it�s a lovely set of songs that�s at once both bold and introspective. Enlisting an impressive roster of friends and collaborators -- Shawn Colvin, Kelly Willis, Ruthie Foster, Adrian Belew, and Jimmy Lafave among them, as well as select covers � Hickman relays the material with sly observations and heartfelt circumstance. Her music recalls some of the great female singers of past decades; echoes of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Suzanne Vega, Janis Ian, Sandy Denny and other icons find a presence in these gentle, swaying ballads and quiet confessionals, but it�s Hickman�s own steadfast melodies that etch the greatest impression here, sounding, even on first hearing, like familiar standards. Side one is the softer and perhaps more indelible side, with songs such as �A Song For You,� �To A Maddening Ghost� and �Living In Quiet Desperation� manifest as contemplative narratives boasting memorable melodies easily the equal of any crafted by those aforementioned influences. An unexpectedly jaunty version of the Rolling Stones� �Mother�s Little Helper� keeps to the theme, but muddles the context, just as a sassy take on Amy Rigby�s taunting �Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again� enlivens the generally more upbeat disc two, while still managing to stay within the parameters of the pathos imbued in the album as a whole. A brilliant, affecting and wholly satisfying initiative, Motherlode is one of the yet-to-be discovered treasures of the year and just possibly, the decade to date.
- Listening with Lee Zimmerman

Musically, thematically, even spiritually, this two-disc meditation on motherhood and the joys and frustrations of women is the most wildly ambitious release of the veteran Texan's career. After channeling her talents into a series of children's albums in recent years, Sara Hickman returns to thoroughly adult concerns (as the cover illustration from the Kama Sutra attests). Though her style has long straddled folk and pop, the richness of these arrangements underscores the depth of her lyrics. On "To a Maddening Ghost," the melodic sophistication and inventive section support a desperate prayer, a lullaby for the sleepless, while the stirring lead guitar from David Grissom (Joe Ely, Dixie Chicks) brings "Living in Quiet Desperation" to a strong, almost triumphant finale. In addition to the eclecticism of her own material, Hickman offers a surprising range of covers, including a somber reading of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," a jazzy recasting of the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper," an inspirational reading of Peter Himmelman's "This Too Shall Pass," and a rendition of the traditional "Wagoner's Lad" that evokes Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention. The discs split in terms of mood, with despair dominant on the first and happiness permeating the second, as the seven-minute "My Mama's Hands" (with harmonies from Kelly Willis) provides a bridge of generational continuity.
--Don McLeese, Amazon.com

To paraphrase a defunct automaker’s catch phrase, “This is not your toddler’s Sara Hickman!”

Hickman’s new double album, Motherlode, catches the prolific singer and writer of both adult and children’s songs in two distinctly grown-up moods: one quite desperate, the other more defiant.

Clearly, womanhood and motherhood, and the mud too often slung at both, weigh heavily and proximately on Hickman, who traditionally has smiled brightly from her album covers.

True, many of her previous outings were also bittersweet, often blending hope and despair, love and loss. This time out, however, despair and loss push more forcefully to the fore; but while hope and love are less readily apparent than usual, they remain forces nonetheless.

On disc one, The Mirror (Of Despair), Hickman juxtaposes biting lyrics against sweet music and well crafted musicianship to highlight the fate of women trapped in a misogynistic social prison. She critiques the status quo most effectively with an upbeat reading of the traditional The Wagoner’s Lad; an honest, achingly personal take on Tears for Fear’s Mad World; and her own self-affirming Comfort’s Sigh and My Mama’s Hands.

With disc two, The Thread (Of Happiness), Hickman leverages a set of (literally) more brassy songs to defy that patriarchal prison. Here, she broadens her musical palette with the funky, horn driven reggae of her own Two Days Today; the country-flavored blues of Amy Rigby’s Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?; the post-hip-hop R&B of Addison and Singh’s Enuf; the classic folk-rock of Peter Himmelman’s This Too Will Pass; and the soulful jazz of Dan Cohen’s paean to parenthood, Your Reward.

Despite occasional heavy-handed production/engineering/mixing values – for which Hickman as Producer must be held responsible – both discs share her deliciously versatile vocals, creative arrangements, and the support of a cadre of guest artists both local (including singer/songwriters Shawn Colvin and Kelly Willis) and national (including guitar guru Adrian Belew).

Motherlode documents Hickman’s reaction to a social minefield that should have been swept clean years ago. With well crafted and chosen words and music she describes, critiques, and in her way overcomes an unjust world in which women remain second-class citizens. And all along, she manages to eschew self-destruction negativism in favor of a healthy dose of “can do” positivism.

Whether or not Hickman purposefully includes her piquant and hit-worthy cover of The Rolling Stones’ Mother’s Little Helper to remind us that baby-boomer second wave feminism is now four-plus decades old is questionable. Whatever the case, it is a timely reminder that equality for women and mothers in both the private and public spheres should no longer be an issue, but a fact.

4 ½ of 5 stars.

-ThisIsTexasMusic.com

Sara Hickman should have been listed among the front line of the women's Folk movement in the late '80s, but label treachery kept her from her rightful place. After extricating herself from industry clutches by raising $40,000 from her fans to buy back the masters for her third album, Hickman had a good run of indie and self-released albums (particularly 1998's Adrian Belew-produced/performed Two Kinds of Laughter). Five years ago, Hickman abandoned adult concerns for the world of children's music, creating typically brilliant simplicity. With her eighth album, Motherlode, Hickman returns to the adult world with a vengeance; 20 songs over two discs with a sexual position from the Kama Sutra on the cover. Motherlode's theme is the plight and triumph of women, and the album's songs are amazing, even by Hickman's own standards. From the melancholy power of "Living in Quiet Desperation" and the World Pop twitter of "Birdhouse" to the cautionary abuse tale of "20 Years to Life" and her evocative covers (particularly the atmospheric take on Tears for Fears' "Mad World" and the scorching lope of Amy Rigby's "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?"), Motherlode is a sonic round-up of everything Sara Hickman has done so beautifully and consistently throughout her career. Here's hoping she can keep finding more time for grown-ups. (BB) Grade: A

- Cincinnati CityBeat

CD review: Sophisticated songs from Sara Hickman
Hickman reminds us that her voice remains a force
By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News
Texas singer Sara Hickman has spent so many years singing kids' music that it's easy to forget how good she sounds doing songs a tad more sophisticated than "Oh I Wish I Were a Fishy in the Sea."
Motherlode is a potent reminder. A two-CD concept piece on the pain and joys of womanhood, it's also a Whitman's Sampler of styles, ranging from Afro-pop ("Birdhouse") to hip-hop soul ("Enuf ") to a gypsy funk spin on "Mother's Little Helper." She's made her name as a folk singer, but Ms. Hickman shines at anything she puts her warm soprano on.
Disc one is the darker of the two, with tunes about depression, murder and women "Living in Quiet Desperation." The high point arrives in her version of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," which begins with a siren and grows more foreboding from there.
Disc two lightens the mood, especially when Ms. Hickman twangs up Amy Rigby's "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?" She reinterprets a dozen tunes in all, including "Learn You Like a Book," a chiming love song co-written by Dallas' Colin Boyd. But she's a fine songwriter in her own right, as she shows with "Comfort's Sigh," a haunting tune built upon a timeless melody.
Guest stars crop up all over the place, including the Austin string group Tosca, guitar whiz Adrian Belew and singers Kelly Willis and Jimmy LaFave. Shawn Colvin adds harmony on "Two Days Today," an infectious folk-pop strut that sounds, for lack of a better term, Colvin-esque.
But the guests never steal the spotlight from Ms. Hickman's expansive voice. She's least impressive when she's doing a dead-on Joni Mitchell impersonation, but those moments are few and far between. Motherlode is a rich source of jazz, gospel, country and soul without a single kiddie song in sight.

A Triumphant Return

You have to go back to 2002 and Faithful Heart to find Sara Hickman's most recent studio recording that featured adult content. From 1999 through 2003 she scored accolades and awards for her trio of children's music recordings. Silent for too long in the adult marketplace, Hickman's take with Motherlode appears to have been "make mine a double." A word of caution, however: Whereas Sara's six solo studio recordings from 1989 through 2000 featured mostly self-penned material, only eight of the 20 tracks on Motherlode feature her name, and half that total involve a co-writer. As for the overall thrust of the two discs, they can be summed up as presenting positive and negative scenarios. For one's "down days," the contents of Disc 1: The Mirror (Of Despair) will either assist you in descending further into your own particular slough or in figuring out that it's time to pull up your "big girls" and get on with life. On "up days," you can draw liberally upon Disc 2: The Thread (Of Happiness).

David Batteau of Appaloosa and Buskin & Batteau fame is Sara's co-writer on "A Song Of You," the opening cut on Disc 1, in which the narrator reflects upon the passage of time and "a love lived so well." (Batteau and Hickman have collaborated previously; their "Oh, Daddy" appeared on Hickman's Necessary Angels [1994].) Hickman has suffered from insomnia for many years, and "To A Maddening Ghost" was penned as an acknowledgement that "sleep won't come," in the hope that it would bring catharsis. "Wagoner's Lad," featuring Sara on lead vocal and harmonies, is the collection's only traditional tune; it depicts the pre-emancipation plight of womankind - "Controlled by their parents ... until they are wives/Then slaves to their husbands ... the rest of their lives." With music by Hickman and album keyboardist Eddy Hobizal, and featuring fine electric lead guitar by David Grissom (Joe Ely Band, Dixie Chicks), the lyric to "Living In Quiet Desperation" paints a portrait of a love that has been "torn apart at the seams."

In the opening verse of "Twenty Years To Life," penned by Tricia Mitchell/Monte Warden (solo and ex-Wagoneers), the female narrator - prisoner #36425 - references the person "truly answerable" for her predicament: "For 20 years I loved a man/With a temper like a gun/Sometimes I wasn't good enough/Some days his only one." This atmospheric cut features a support vocal from Kelly Willis and adapts the melody of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' "Mother's Little Helper" via a jazzy arrangement featuring Austin-based string ensemble Tosca. Sara closes Disc 1 with a couple of her own songs, "Comfort's Sigh" and "My Mama's Hands." Where the former focuses on personal faith and strength, the latter is a generational treatise on life, death, and bonds that can never be broken.

Disc 2 opens with another Hickman/Batteau collaboration, this one with a melodically cyclical intro where the guitar sound brings to mind Paul Simon's "Graceland." The duo's uplifting and wonderfully atmospheric "Birdhouse," a personal reflection upon mankind and the natural world at the dawn of the 21st century, hinges on the bridge: "All that we've forgotten/We've become machines ... Turning to the garden...To dream." The good-time tune that underpins the tongue-twisting title "Two Days Today," flows from Pop to Reggae and back, while a Shawn Colvin harmony vocal supports Hickman's lead. Austin-based Tricia Mitchell's "Learn You Like A Book," penned with Dallas musician Colin Boyd, finds the narrator, in the process of rekindling love with an old flame, asking what happened to him or her in the time between. The raunchy "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again," by Nashville's Amy Rigby and Sherry Rich, opens with the sound of a dial tone and a voice that states, "If you need assistance, dial your operator. This is a recording." "Stupid Love," recorded at Phil Parlapiano's Los Angeles studio and co-written by Hickman and Parlapiano, has a confused narrator who is "fighting all the time/Over stupid odds and ends/Then we make love and make up as friends." Bay Area-based Amy Meyers' "Good" appeared on her 2004 album Strange & Beautiful, and the song won her the San Francisco West Coast Songwriters Association Open Mic in March 2004.

With a refrain that amounts to "Enough is never enough," "Enuf," penned by Mark Addison and Nina Singh, marries an R&B tune to lyrics delivered Hip-Hop-style. One of the collection's executive producers, Paul Hudson, composed the laid-back "Always A Saint." Hickman maintains her support for Dallas musicians with the happy-go-lucky "Little Bird Of Anger," penned by Bob Ackerman of The Ackermans. The song closed the duo's current album As Far As I Can See" and on Sara's rendition she's joined, vocally, by daughter Lily and a choir of friends. Wisconsin-bred Peter Himmelman's optimistic "This Too Will Pass" ("Oh, like a sprouting seed/You'll grow through this weed") appeared on his 1991 album Strength To Strength; here, Jimmy LaFave adds his voice to the cut. Dan Cohen's soulful "Your Reward" features the voices of Hickman, Gretchen Phillips, and Ruthie Foster. The latter pair contribute elsewhere on Motherlode - and here, aided by a brass section, bring the collection to a rousing climax.

I used the word "adult" in the opening sentence, and I repeat it here as a device to draw your attention to the couple portrayed in flagrante delicto on the front cover of Motherlode. Look a little closer at the same cover and you'll spot some instances of sly marital humour.

FolkWax Rating: 8

-- Arthur Wood, FolkWax

Hickman ventures back into adult music
By: Andy Langer, News 8 Austin

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Sara Hickman's latest album cover pays homage to the Kama Sutra; this from a woman who's spent the last five years concentrating on children's music. Make no mistake, Motherlode, her new album, is what she calls "Adult Music."

"It's funny, I never had to say 'adult music' until I started making children's music. Then I had to start quantifying it because people would come to my shows at 10 p.m. with their 4-year-old or come to my 2 p.m. kids shows and be confused. 'Adult' was the quickest way to explain what I'm doing. I guess that does have a tawdry connotation to it though," Hickman said.

A concept record, Motherlode has a choose-your-mood, choose-your-disc premise. You can explore despair on disc one and happiness on disc 2. For Hickman, it's a chronicle of not just the woman she is today and where she's been, but of a veteran songwriter finally coming to her own.

"I feel like this is the strongest adult CD I've made in that I feel the most comfortable in my skin. I've always loved making music, it's just come out of me. I couldn't stop it. But this time I had a very clear vision of what I wanted. I wanted to talk about sex, insomnia, war, death, domestic violence and frustration. I think these are all things everyone can relate to, but I wanted to make it kind of sexy and well-rounded, coming from a woman," Hickman said.

While Hickman hopes women, and men, that have liked her past work will enjoy the challenge of Motherlode, she's also anxious to reach people walking into her career cold, folks with the energy to sift through two discs of diverse material to find what they relate to most.

"This isn't a stupid record. This isn't a record where I threw something together and put it out. It took a year to make. And I put a lot of thought into it. I think it's like an onion. You're going to peel away the layers and the more you listen the more you'll discover," Hickman said.

"Hopefully people will feel like it was a good purchase."

Mother's Lode
Sara Hickman hides the breast--but not much else--on her latest double-disc album
By Sander Wolf

Sara Hickman's last concert at Poor David's Pub didn't have quite the air of a homecoming. Despite an inspired introduction in faux-Latin by club owner David Carr, the audience showed absolutely no enthusiasm, and that lack of energy in the crowd was reflected right back from the stage.

Hickman tried to make a go of it; joking about how it felt like she was playing in a library and trying to make a connection with some short stories. Still nothing. Midway through the set, a gaggle of giggling girls who clearly were not there for the show tramped into the bar. The disturbance annoyed the audience, but Hickman, now with an obvious obstacle to overcome, finally mustered enough energy to make it clear whom the crowd should be paying attention to.

"It was driving me crazy that it was so quiet. Even coffee house shows can get a little rambunctious--at least the ones that I sing at--so that was very odd," recalls Hickman. "When people are still because they're uncomfortable, it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, you could leave the show and get hit by a bus. So, come on, let's get this party together while we can."

Hickman admits to thriving on challenges; perhaps that's why her new album is intentionally the most ambitious one of her career. The former Dallasite, settled into a busy, loving family life in Austin, is doing much better then a decade ago when she was struggling to get out of major-label obligations. Seemingly in a bid to balance out that domestic tranquility, Hickman threw down the personal gauntlet of creating a double-disc collection (one disc upbeat and one contemplative) with an emphasis on what it means to be a mother. Oh, and the cover is supposed to have a topless woman in a dominant sexual pose straight out of the Kama Sutra.

"I wanted to have one CD talk about how euphoric and uplifting and joyous being a mom and a musician are to me with this kind of tension underneath it," Hickman says. "I am happy, and I love my life, and I love my family, but the flip side is that I'm constantly balancing this universal sorrow. I mean, I help with the homeless community, and that seems endless. I help with the Romanian children, and that seems endless...I could look at it all as negative, but I don't want to. For me these two CDs are just more of the complexity of who I am."

The intentionally bipolar result, Motherlode, lives up to all of Hickman's lofty goals. (Well, almost--the album's distributor required censoring the cover woman's breasts.) The happy side is a gloriously manic and disjointed romp. From the comically countrified "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?" to the full gospel choir send-up of the children's song "Your Reward," Hickman exercises her immense vocal ability, soaring at one moment and drawling out her syllables at the next. The darker side has Hickman's slow cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" and sly take on the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" alongside the heartening "Comfort's Sigh." Exploring the album's multiple layers and moods reveals the immense undertaking it was to craft, but for Hickman, it's just another difficult mission accomplished.

Two dimensions of womanhood from Sara Hickman
New double CD 'Motherlode' takes on a complex range of emotional colors
By Brad Buchholz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, June 30, 2006
After recording and performing music for children the past several years, Austin singer-songwriter Sara Hickman swings back into adult music with "Motherlode" — a self-produced two-CD concept album, a musical rumination on the dark and light dimensions of womanhood. Hickman's aim, throughout, is reflection. The moods of individual songs spin from sorrowful to spiritual to humorous. But the beauty here is in the whole.

The first "Motherlode" CD is titled "The Mirror of Despair." It is introspective, exploring themes of melancholy and woe — though it's never as blue as, say, Joni Mitchell. The second disc, "The Thread of Happiness" is overt, expressing hope and joy.

Hickman is so intent in conveying just the right mix of emotional colors that she functions more as a director than a writer on this project. Twelve of the CD's 20 songs are not her own. Hickman's fans will celebrate many of these covers as refreshing departures, especially on songs written by men, such her playful take on "Mother's Little Helper" by the Rolling Stones, a treatment of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears that's as dark as midnight, and the affirming "Little Bird of Anger" by Bob Ackerman.

Hickman writes two tunes with friend David Batteau that really stand out for their ethereal spirit — the brooding "A Song of You," rich with the paradoxical imagery of presence and absence, appreciation and longing; and "Birdhouse," which suggests a joyful garden party that might be choreographed by the likes of George Harrison, John Muir and Buddha.

Yet in the end, it's tone and texture, not word, that sticks with you the most on this record. No coincidence that the album is populated by musicians who have jazz backgrounds, whose creative emphasis is on landscape, not sheer speed: Mitch Watkins on guitar, Eddy Hobizal on piano, Steve Zirkel on bass. Backing Hickman's sweet sound on vocals are guests Kelly Willis, Shawn Colvin, Ruthie Foster and Jimmy LaFave.

Hickman's strength as a singer and writer, even in themes of darkness, is connected to a kind of delicacy. Her songs rarely cut directly to the emotional vein; they arrive there slowly, almost discretely. So while "Motherlode" is probably the most complex album of Hickman's career, its beauties are subtle ones. Women will surely recognize a lot of themselves in these songs. Men probably will recognize women they love in some of them — and in some cases, feel that universal connection that defies gender.