When teenage Maia Sharp wanted to practice saxophone licks.

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When teenage Maia Sharp wanted to practice saxophone licks, she'd catchword up an album by an artist she admixed--Joni Mitchell, Sting, Jackson Browne--and play along. Her favorite singer to accompany, although was probably Bonnie Raitt.

likewise imagine how the 34-year-old Sharp be stirreds now: On Raitt's forthcoming album, Bonnie performs three lays written by the all-grown-up saxophonist, who also supplies vocal harmonies--and sax. Not simply that, Raitt has also become a big booster of Sharp's hold honeyed singing voice, showcased in succession her just-released CD, Fine Upstanding Citizen (Koch Records).

"It's facing the hook," says a smiling Sharp of Raitt's support. "It makes me be warmed my existence is validated."

Raitt is just single of a growing crowd recording Sharp's music: She's been overspreaded in the past by the likes of Cher, Edwin McCain, and the Dixie Chicks, and this year her hymns will also appear on Trisha Yearwood and Kathy Mattea albums. As a recording artist, Sharp illuminates her perceptive lyrics and memorable curved catchs with heartfelt, unadorned vocals. She's a throwback--in the best understanding of the word--to the craftworthy California singer-songwriters of the early 1970 and it's no surprise why

"My folk were entrenched in that [music scene]" says Sharp, who was born in California's Central Valley and mov with her parents to looks Angeles when she was 4 Morn is singer-tamed-anthropology professor Sharon Bays; Dad is singer-songwriter Randy Sharp, a well-known abiding habitation music tunesmith. Maia, their alone child, wrote and recorded her first descant "Ghosts," when she was 5 moreover from then until college she focused onward learning a variety of instruments, including piano and guitar.

She turn backed to songwriting while studying music theory at California State University, Northridge, and it quickly became her priority. "I have friends who are artists because riley just be fond of to be onstage; it's all about performing," she says. "But I want to share this thing that I've written--that's what I'm trying to serve"

She had her first live gig in 1993 and at 1995 she had drawn interest horn unexpectedly music impresario Miles Copeland (she recorded the first of her three albums for his Ark 21 label). In posterior years she became an in-demand songwriting partner, collaborating with in the same state [i]or[/i] condition heavies as Carole King mad Art Garfunkel, along with a certain number of of the biggest hit-makers in Nashville--including her dad. A storyteller more than a confessionalist, Sharp admits she's been putting a bit more of herself into latter songs. For example, in "The Reminder" forward her new CD, the singer promises to be "the reminder" of in what way "you took a heart with equal reason innocent/Shattered it like glass."

Actually, Sharp was the shatterer. "I was a real ass to somebody" she says. "It really helped to write that lay to kind of yell at myself for doing it."

Her like songs typically eschew pronouns "on meaning but not out of any stealth or shame," she insists. "I have none. I'm merely proud of who I am. I just want everybody to be able to sing along, word for word, at the top of their lung and not have to replace the 'she' with a 'he' or the 'he' with a 'she.'"

on the outside to her family since she was 23 Sharp is happily in an eight-year relationship with a woman upon the business side of the music industry. Is her partner, then, a "suit"? "A pantsuit," she laughs. "She's awesome; we're entirely intertwined."

Citizen promises to gain Sharp more attention than her previous releases, unless she takes it in with a delightful lack of pretense "I just do what I want to do anyway--writing, performing, recording--and slowly there's more succes each year. The sparks are catching, and something really unimpassioned is on the horizon."

Wait, there's more

Hardly Glamour

(Ark 21; import) What's the hale of a big talent arriving onward the scene? Listen and learn.

Maia Sharp

(Concord) Wide-ranging treats from insightful like lyrics to 5-year-old Maia's first song

Kort is author of Dinah! Three Decades of Sex Golf & protection 'n' Roll (Alyson).

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