Up until 2014, country-rock singer-songwriter Sarah Peacock was playing upwards of 250 shows a year, traveling from her home base of Nashville. It was during this phase in her career that she toured northern Arizona for the first time (in 2011), and she’s been in love with the Southwest ever since. (It shows in the title of her most recent studio album, 2013’s Albuquerque Sky.) “The first time I saw Arizona, I was overwhelmed and mystified by the culture and the history and the rock formations,” says Sarah, who grew up in Georgia. “There’s something about wide-open spaces that translate spiritually. They are conducive to a housecleaning of the heart.”
Sarah has been playing Arizona several times a year since that first visit. She will take the stage at the Elks Theatre & Performing Arts Center in Prescott on May 14 as part of the venue’s monthly Prescott Opry program. Sarah will also perform at Lulu’s Chocolate Lounge in Sedona on May 15 and 16 at 7 p.m.
Sarah grew up in a musical family; one of her sisters is a professional opera singer and the other is an accomplished pianist. Sarah says she picked up a guitar and wrote her first song when she was 11. She went on to study music at Belmont University in Nashville, and she hit the road with her original songs in 2005. She was signed by an independent recording company in 2006, and she released her first album in 2009. After years of nonstop touring, Sarah scaled back in 2014 in order to cultivate a relationship with Nashville. Her song Hurricane won best song in the 2014 American Songwriting Awards (she performed it on the CBS Morning Show as a tribute to Hurricane Sandy victims), and her song Beautiful was a winner in the 2014 Unsigned Only competition. Right now, Sarah is working on her new album, which should be out by the end of the year.
“There’s so much more to being an artist than touring and writing songs,” says Sarah. “At the heart of what I do is the healing that takes place inside some souls when they listen to my music. These are healings that I might never know about.” – Erika Ayn Finch. Photo by Adam Sanner Photography/Nashville TN
SEDONA CALENDAR: Events, activities, shows, happenings
