Sarah Shaw Dawson applied to be a freelance reporter at the Martha’s Vineyard Times with a poem. The managing editor read the poetry, and was intrigued enough to request more material — perhaps some writing with more paragraphs and quotes — and that is how Shaw Dawson’s story at The Times started.
Shaw Dawson was born and raised on the Island, where she developed a passion for music and the written word. She is now a full-time beat reporter at The Times, with a love for informing the community she grew up in, covering health, housing, and education. She also performs across the Island, both with a band of musicians and as a solo act. She plays electric and acoustic guitar, and writes her own music. Her style is indie, with a rock flair. She describes her lyrics as ethereal, hopeful, and deeply rooted in the natural world.
She was always a musical child, trying her hand at several instruments. In her youth, she grew to love piano. Eventually she taught herself guitar, and her background in piano heavily influenced her unique picking style: “I don’t pick with discernment. I pick all notes, so it’s a really fluid movement.”
Up until recently, Shaw Dawson was embarrassed by this trait, but now she’s embraced it as a strength, and realizes it’s part of what makes her music distinctly hers. Her advice to other musicians: “If you have this belief in your abilities, or a weird thing that you do that you don’t see other people doing, and that is embarrassing, lean in and do it more because it could be the exact thing that sets you apart.”
Growing up, Shaw Dawson always thought that whatever she did would involve music; however, after leaving college, although she was still making music, she was unenthusiastic about sharing it. Her lyrics are her own, and express vulnerability, and she felt daunted by revealing that side of herself. Now when people say they relate to her lyrics, she is honored. “I wouldn’t describe it as wanting people to know me, I would say more like I don’t feel like I have anything to hide,” she said.
Her lyrics aren’t written in the traditional sense you might imagine: A writer, sitting in a field with a journal, looking out over the horizon. Instead, Shaw Dawson presses “record” on her phone and improvises; later, when she revisits the recording, what sticks becomes the song.
Shaw Dawson also used to view performing as creating a distance between the artist and the crowd, and something she wouldn’t want to do with her own music. Now she sees it as an open and flowing dialogue, connecting groups of people. “I don’t feel like I’m talking at them, singing at them. I feel like we’re there together,” she said. “They’re experiencing the music in a way that I’m not, but we’re hearing the same thing, and like they’re in their world, I’m in my world, but we’re in this together at the same time.”
Shaw Dawson’s band includes Sean Clarke on bass and Jon Malone on drums.
Sean Clarke is the sous-chef at Black Sheep. He came to the Island from the U.K. as a chef looking for work in 2020, after most kitchens in Europe shut their doors due to COVID. He had originally planned to go to Australia, but after they closed their borders, he caught wind of Martha’s Vineyard, came for one summer, and fell in love. “I needed to make money, so I initially … was going to work two months and then leave, but it kind of dragged me in, and I’m still here six years later,” said Clarke. This summer he started a business called Nami, known for ceviche and Brazilian lemonade.
Clarke described Shaw Dawson as the skeleton of the band that he and Jon are filling out. “They’re literally all her sounds and her creations; she’s the foundation of it all,” said Clarke.
Clarke spent last winter exploring Argentina, hiking, and living out of a backpack. When he got back, he met Malone, and they began playing together. He stated that when he performs with Malone and Shaw Dawson, their sound is always growing and changing. “Sometimes I’ll do something like, ‘Oh, that was sick’, and then won’t remember it. So we just kind of see what happens every time. I do like that kind of spontaneity of it,” said Clarke.
Jon Malone joined the band this winter, after meeting Shaw Dawson at what began as a jazz jam session. The night ended with the group playing some of Shaw Dawson’s original music. Malone left intrigued by her work, and interested in exploring more. “My job initially was to come in and support her with her playing, her guitar and singing, just seeing what she naturally sounded like, and I think we’re organically moving her music a little bit into a new direction,” said Malone.
Malone is a self-described pandemic transplant, and credits the Island with his return to music after a 20-year hiatus. “The way things have unfolded here is continuing to unfold. It’s allowed me to really get back into something I’ve been doing since I was a little kid,” said Malone.
Malone described his job on the drums as something like solving a puzzle. “It’s like you’re moving the pieces around, and all of a sudden it just clicks,” he said. “I think that’s one of the things that drives me as a musician, is just trying to make it all click.”
As the pieces of the music move around, the sound changes. Malone says intuition decides what works. “You get into a nice, we call it a flow state, where you’re just all connected, and there’s a synergy to it, and then that’s something completely different, where it’s just absolutely pure joy and fun … I think each time we perform, it will just keep getting better, and I think there’ll be some changes, and that part’s up to Sarah with what she feels.”
And Shaw Dawson has big feelings — passion for both her music and her work at the paper. “I’m a feeler,” she said. “When I report, I try to be empathetic and compassionate without oversaturating a piece with feeling. And in my music, I kind of do the opposite,” meaning she leans into her feelings in her music in a way that she can’t in her reporting.
As for her band, Shaw Dawson said they aren’t looking for one specific sound, and some of their best work has come from experimentation. “What matters to me is that I respect and value their playing, and that they respect and value mine, and whatever comes from that, I’m excited to explore it,” she said. “Music is very much alive and changes with us, and I intend for that to be the case.”
Shaw Dawson is grateful for the band, because they never make her feel like she has to fight to be heard; rather they are incredibly uplifting. “There’s still a gap that exists in our society where women, people of color, indigenous people, lower-income people have to fight to be believed, in their words and their art and who they are. I don’t think that [gap] should exist. And I really appreciate that it doesn’t exist in the practice rooms and performances with these guys. I feel respected,” she said.
This is the reason that Shaw Dawson has decided to organize an event on Oct. 2 called HERitage, in solidarity with LadyFest, which is the following day, in Oak Bluffs. “I feel very passionately about uplifting the voices of people who are not as often in the spotlight for those societal reasons,” she said.
“This festival is intentionally meant to be cozy and community-oriented — think warm lighting, accessible art, and good vibes — while also empowering, and putting out there artists and musicians who are women and nonbinary people, and to give a space for people to share their work as much as possible,” said Shaw Dawson.
For HERitage, each artist was instructed to choose a historic woman in Island history, or a maternal figure in their own life, and create an open-ended piece of multimedia artwork inspired by whomever they choose. The prompt is rooted in honoring who came before, embodied by the creatives who live here now.
HERitage will be held at Stillpoint in West Tisbury on Oct. 2, from 3 to 8 pm. The event is coordinated in solidarity with LadyFest, which is the following day in Oak Bluffs, from 1 to 9 pm.
