Synchronicity

One day in 1994 I was perusing a magazine rack when a copy of New York magazine jumped out at me … there was a picture of Anna Nicole Smith with a title superimposed over her that read White Trash Nation. Having just received a copy of the White Trash Cookbook I felt I’d better snap it up. While reading through it ravenously I came across a small picture of a cute blonde lady hiding behind a Gibson electric guitar. This had nothing to do with the theme of the issue. I read the accompanying article and learned that this was Sara Hickman of Texas. Seems she’d had to sell her house to pay for the rights to her own music. This didn’t sound right. And she had a new record coming out soon called Necessary Angels. Decided I’d get it to check her out.

Soon after I visited a small local record store. The clerk said he’d never heard of Ms. Hickman and I was about to leave when I looked at a tall stack of CDs that had arrived that day and at the very bottom I was able to make out the title Necessary Angels. “I’ll take it!” I said as the clerk started working away at getting it out from the very depths of the pile. The New York article had described Ms. Hickman as being the distaff Lyle Lovett but with better hair. Since I was already a Lovett fan this seemed to make sense. Loved the CD from start to finish … later found her two earlier releases (Equal Scary People and Shortstop) on cassette in the same store where the clerk claimed he’d never heard of Ms. Hickman. Major talent with a powerhouse voice.

So soon after I was at a small club (no longer in existence … may have been called The Reverb) to see another of my favourites (possibly Joe Henry) and in the stairwell was a large Necessary Angels poster … seems Sara Hickman was to be  appearing locally in the very near future. I was there waiting with a friend and his wife. Sara had a cold and wasn’t in perfect performance mode but it was still a great show (and I learned that one of the songs on the new record was inspired by Jane Fonda). It turned out that this appearance was a media splash and nobody expected many people to be there who weren’t record execs or reporters. But there we were enjoying ourselves immensely! Sees someone else was appearing after Sara and since I had to get a rough ready I decided to stay.

But my friends left and happened to meet Sara near the exit. Robert explained that we weren’t media types and had come specifically to see her perform. Sara was so grateful that she gave Robert a big hug (not sure how his wife felt about that). I didn’t find out about this until the next day. Rats.

Anyway Sara and I corresponded for several years and eventually even became Facebook friend — whatever THAT means. But it all started with that New York magazine cover and a cookbook.