Today we’d like to introduce you to Sadie Gustafson-Zook.
Hi Sadie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Of course! Thanks for asking me!
I’ve been singing for a long time- My parents say that I started singing before I could form words. My parents had a folk duo before I was born, so when I was 4 I picked up the violin and at 6 I started playing fiddle and singing with them. My dad played the autoharp and my pastor mom played the guitar, and we all sang, so it was definitely a musically-conducive learning environment. I picked up the guitar mainly on my own with help from my mom when I was in 5th grade because I loved to sing and found it hard to accompany myself on the fiddle. I also started writing songs around this time.
Another angle of my musical upbringing is that I grew up the daughter of a Mennonite pastor (my mother) in Goshen, Indiana (a very Mennonite town). Four-part harmony singing is very important in the Mennonite tradition; hence, group/ choral singing was also a big part of my childhood. I sang in choirs through elementary, middle, high school, and college, and while I loved the act of singing, my favorite part was making jokes with my randomly assigned seatmate friends. As a whole, my childhood was a pretty fully-immersed musical experience.
I studied classical vocal performance in college and was a coloratura soprano (very high and fast notes). While I enjoyed re-interpreting other people’s music, I felt there was a musical disconnect between what I wanted to say and what types of art my studies encouraged. So once I graduated I decided to move to Boston to be surrounded by folk musicians (with the legacy of the folk music venue Club Passim and the prevalence of rootsy musicians at Berklee School of Music, I felt it would be a good place to be a folk musician) as well as to pursue grad school for jazz at Longy School of Music. I mainly wanted to have an opportunity to continue my learning about music in a way that would weave together my technical/theory-oriented classical studies with the personality and storytelling my of my folk music upbringing. I felt that jazz and improvisation would be a great way to bring those sides of me together.
In Boston I found a lovely folk and jazz music community that has connected me with musicians from around the country, and gave me an opportunity to dig into understanding myself as a musician and an adult.
I decided to leave Boston in the fall of 2021, and since then I’ve been traveling around, trying to find my grounding (musically and communally). I released my second original album, “Sin of Certainty,” in April 2021, and have been competing in a number of songwriting competitions lately, which has been a great way to meet like-minded folks.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly I’ve been lucky to have a pretty cushy journey. My story’s most challenging part has been taking ownership of my musicianship. Since I started so early and received a lot of positive affirmation up front, there have been plenty of times when I’ve had to decide if I’m choosing music or doing it because it’s what’s expected of me. When I was a little kid playing fiddle with my parent’s band, I often felt like I was there filling a role, but it didn’t feel like me or like I was choosing it. But learning guitar, writing my songs, and investing in my musical relationships and experiences have put me in a place where I feel much more confident that my musicianship is my own. I’m even revisiting previous parts of my musicianship that felt inherited (for example- I just went to an old-time festival and had a ball playing fiddle tunes- something that I previously had a much more complex relationship with).
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The things I love most about my work are my honesty and melodies. I find that my music is at its best when I can write from the point of being totally honest with myself. In my lyrics, I aim to tell stories and work through emotions in a way that sets it all out there in a way that people can relate to.
I am also a very melody-driven musician. When writing a song for myself, I’ve found that the processing works best when it involves a memorable melody. That way, the message stays with me as a mantra, and I have a chance to sit with it (and listen to myself sing it until it’s internalized). I think this is also a pretty effective way to reach my audiences.
Something that people tell me often is that I have a unique vocal tone. Because of my classical and jazz background, I’ve worked on having an even tone throughout the vocal registers. This has allowed me to write songs that venture outside the normal range of singer-songwriters and harness my agility in memorable and catchy ways.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I think the element of surprise has been useful for me in meeting new people and relating to audiences. I’m a fairly casual person (maybe the midwesterner in me) and I enjoy being familiar and relatable with people I don’t know. I like to lead with a personal connection, so when I get on stage I try to keep my personality present (trying not to switch to some performance version of myself). When I start singing and audiences hear my voice, my melodies, and my guitar, I can take some people off guard.
I sometimes sing music for patients in hospitals as a Certified Music Practitioner. During the lockdown, I had a weekly gig playing songs remotely over Zoom for patients at a local hospital. Something that came up again and again was that the patients were surprised to hear my voice come out of my body. So I think that extends to the stage as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sadiegustafsonzook.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/sadiebgz
- Facebook: facebook.com/sadiegustafsonzook
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN5D4LE76U2_edeXbKOSwcA
Image Credits
Eric Schwartz, GRACIA the Artist, Joni Lohr, Emma Caskey
