Singer-songwriter Sarah Davidson has been performing in front of crowds her entire life. “I’m one of six kids and 35 grandkids, and I was basically the entertainment for everyone my whole life,” she says. “In a room with six other people you’ve got to be a little bit loud and entertaining if you ever want to get a word in edgewise.
Growing up in Valdosta, Georgia, Davidson always knew she wanted to be an entertainer. “I thought for a while I might want to be an actress, and then I discovered my love for singing,” she says. Deciding that music was her calling, she knew from an early age that she wanted to move to Nashville.
Davidson moved to Music City to attend Belmont University in the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, but she had bigger aspirations than a degree from the university: “My plan was to get an internship at a record label and to get discovered that way, which is exactly how it happened.”
While attending Belmont, Davidson was an intern at Curb Records where she learned a little about every aspect of the music business, from accounting to publishing. “I basically was doing what I was going to school to learn how to do, and I was giving my whole check as an artist/writer there back to [Belmont],” she says. Already working in her chosen profession, she dropped out of Belmont and signed a publishing deal with Curb Records.
She was with Curb Records for a year but found that she and the label were not a good fit for one another, and the two parted ways. After a period of writing independently, she signed a deal with EMI Publishing, the publisher for which she still writes.
In the midst of those changes, she met and fell in love with her husband, songwriter Dallas Davidson. Though the two both lived in Nashville, they met in Key West, Florida at a songwriter’s festival. “We have a bunch of the same friends,” Davidson says. “They kept saying, ‘You have to meet this guy, you have to meet this guy.’ We had all of this stuff in common and knew all of the same people, and really just hit it off from there. We’ve been basically inseparable ever since.”
After getting married, Davidson was faced with a decision. “I was kind of deciding if I just wanted to be a songwriter, or if I wanted to go the artist route, being on the road my whole life and all that,” she says. She decided that being an artist was what she really wanted to do, and she and Dallas have been collaborating to record her first album in the fall, which Dallas will also produce.
The couple are planning to shop around for a record label after they’ve finished, recording the album independently in order to maintain full control over the creative aspect. “That way I can decide what songs I love and represent who I am. I’m really excited about this first project,” she says. She hopes to fill the album with up-tempo songs that will brighten your day. “I want to change people’s days, to put people in a good mood. That’s really what changes the world.”
By Andrew Miller
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