Jan Krist w/ Sarah Morris – November 4, 2023

Jan Krist is a singer-songwriter with a rich catalog of recorded music, and a fine, resonant voice. Born in Detroit, Krist was raised on rock, and schooled in the folk and acoustic music of the ’60s and ’70s. Today, Krist’s work reflects the power and poetry of having matured as an artist in that place and time.

Perhaps you’ve caught her live, heard her on the radio, or streamed one of her videos on YouTube. Jan Krist has performed all over the U.S., and has released 13 solo recordings to date. Critical response to her music has been strong and effusive, and her work has been praised in the pages of Entertainment Weekly Magazine, Dirty Linen, Image Journal, and Billboard Magazine, among other publications. 

“Jan Krist is a singer songwriter whose music has an uncanny way of cutting to the heart of a topic and providing the listener with food for thought,” writes Bob Darden in Billboard Magazine. “Her talent as a songwriter equals – if not surpasses – her vocal gifts.“

Darden describes Krist’s voice as being “…somewhere between Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, but it’s all Jan Krist. Unreservedly recommended.”

Jan has twice been a finalist in the New Folk Competition, held each year at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, Texas. She has also won four Detroit Metro Music Awards, having been nominated for that honor 13 times.

Or perhaps you’ve heard Jan Krist perform with the Yellow Room Gang, a celebrated songwriting collective based in southeast Michigan, or with her new band, Diamonds in the Rust.

Or, if you’re particularly fortunate, you may have even taken a songwriting course with Jan. She teaches a songwriting workshop at the Grunewald Guild in Leavenworth, Washington twice a year, and has taught songwriting at the Lamb’s Retreat for Songwriters in Harbor Springs, among other venues.

You may even have some of Jan’s work on one of your walls, or in a place of honor in your living room. She is a gifted visual artist, and works mostly in watercolors and clay these days.

And if you haven’t heard Jan Krist yet, you’re in for a treat.

Sarah Morris has a habit of missing the forest. From the day the Minneapolis based singer-songwriter picked up a guitar, armed with the bone-deep memory of her parents’ well-loved record collection and rooted in the storytelling fire of a Mary Chapin Carpenter tune, she’s been too busy crafting love letters to the details of the trees. Sarah’s endearingly honest, expertly penned songs encourage audiences to pull away from the big picture and get caught up in the magic of our everyday minutia, the rainy day ache in her sunlit voice granting us permission to escape into stories at once hauntingly familiar and uniquely her own.

A graduate of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, Sarah spent the first years of her career in Nashville, losing herself in the art of writing timeless Americana melodies. “Sarah Morris [is] a bright, clear, brilliant songwriter,” wrote Jon Hunt of L’Etoile Magazine. “…pure and crisp and perfect.” In the eight years since her 2011 debut album, Lonely or Free, Sarah’s career, like her songs, has been overflowing with delicious details. Her albums Ordinary Things (2015), Hearts in Need of Repair (2017), and All Mine (2020) recorded with band mates Thomas Nordlund, Andrew Foreman, and Lars-Erik Larson with producer Eric Blomquist, earned international airplay and considerable critical acclaim, reaching notable positions on both the Americana Music Association and Euro Americana charts. In 2016, Sarah was a top four finalist in the NewSong Music Contest at Lincoln Center in New York City, 2^nd place winner of the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at MerleFest in Wilkesboro, NC, and an Americana semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. In 2018, she went on to win the Kerrville New Folk Competition, collecting an honorable mention at the Telluride Troubadour contest along the way.  More recently, Sarah was named Midwest Country Music Organization’s Songwriter of the Year for the second time.

“Rootsy singer Sarah Morris offers a Norah Jones-like approach to Americana, smoothing overs its rough edges with a butter-velvety voice and an intimate songwriting style.”  Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune.

Inclined toward the intimacy of live performance, Sarah spends a remarkable amount of time on stage. Whether solo, backed by the country kick of her long-time band The Sometimes Guys (Nordlund, Foreman, and Lars-Erik Larson), as half of vintage-harmony heavy duo The Home Fires with Vicky Emerson, or hosting local and traveling musicians live online from her big green bathroom, her playful-hearted presence is both captivating and contagious. Amidst her steady performance schedule she has opened for greats like JD Souther, Suzy Bogguss, and Teddy Thompson – she’s had plenty of beautiful moments to revel in. And with a brand new album to share in 2023, she’s primed to offer us a few beautiful moments of our own.

Deeply committed to the Twin Cities’ life-giving music community, Morris hosts an online interview program called, “Hey, I Miss You,” to amplify the work of her peers, as well as collaborating with musicians for a Youtube series of under-rehearsed cover songs filmed in her laurel green bathroom. Additionally, Morris is head cheerleader for a local songwriting collective.

As a writer, lover, mother, and witness, Morris invites us to join her in missing the forest for the trees, with songs that count and celebrate the glorious details of our messy, magical, everyday lives.