Mandy says that the band members realized that they needed to add instruments to their singing, but they only played piano. She explains, “We realized that we could learn as we went along, so Jaimie started playing guitar, I took up the mandolin again and also grabbed the bass guitar. Karen grabbed the ukelele. At first every performance was like spinning delicate china, but we’re at the point where we can hold our own now.”
Eventually Karen left the group to spend more time with her family. Annie joined at that point and Mandy says, “It's been going amazingly well. Annie is so fantastic. She's a great song writer, a fantastic vocalist and she has fresh new ideas.”
Mandy is strongly influenced by bluegrass, Southern gospel and traditional country music. She says, “I was in a family band from a very early age. I was singing before I could talk. my dad was in a number of bands and he'd take me along with him. I was a cute little girl in my dress and pigtails. I’d grab the mic that was nearly as big as my head and sing with him.”
As she got older, her musical influences broadened. Mandy explains, “I've really come to adore the classics like the Eagles and the Beatles. Another big inspiration for me is Alison Krauss. I wish I could sing like her and I wish I could write like her. Her songs are so haunting.”
Annie has always loved music and she’s been influenced by many different genres. She says, “Music was my whole world when I was growing up. I listened to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald. I also listened to a lot of punk rock and later on it was Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. When I got a little older, I went back to jazz.”
Her career as a songwriter really took off once she started singing with Sweet Saturday. Annie explains, “I’ll just be at home and a song will come over me. I’ll pretty much write the song at that point. The other girls and I will get together and change it from an Annie song into a Sweet Saturday song. They add their beautiful harmonies and embellish it. It blossoms into something bigger than I would have been able to come up with on my own.”
One of the most painstaking parts of writing for the group is working out their three part harmonies. Annie says, “We want to find the harmonies that work the best for the three of us. We want to create something that’s really going to stop people in their tracks.”
Mandy adds, “We start working out harmonies and a chorus first. If the song isn't complete, we brainstorm and try different rhythms and different vocal lines or different melodies. We re-write lyrics if we have to.”
Once they have a finished song, they look for a vocal hook. Mandy points out, “You want something that's really catchy and something that isn't too complicated. It still has to be complicated enough to be interesting though. The gauge I go by personally is whether it gives me goose bumps or is it it like taking a breath of fresh air?”
Annie explains that they’re always striving for balance in their music. She elaborates, “We want to find the balance between instrumentation and voices, between music and the songwriting while getting our voices to sound as pretty as we can.”
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