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The unusually high regard in which she's held surfaces in the extraordinary responsibility Lyric Street has given her: Buxton not only co-wrote her new single, she also produced it on her own. That's an unheard-of opportunity for a new country artist. In Nashville, few established stars tackle the important task of producing their own music; for new artists to play such a monumental role in their own recording is a rare, perhaps even unprecedented, event in country music. Producing isn't a duty Buxton requested; it's one she earned. "I had created a demo for 'Space' because I was so excited about it and wanted the label to hear |
it," Buxton recalls. "I took it in right away to play it for the label. Doug Howard, my A&R guy, listened to it and said, 'That's perfect.' He told me to run with it, to finish it myself." Buxton, with characteristic spontaneity, didn't waste a moment. "I was so excited that I went straight from Lyric Street Records to the studio and said, 'I have to do the vocal right now,' and they let me," she says with a laugh that's even raspier than her singing voice. "It wasn't overly thought out, and I think that adds to the emotion of it." One listen to "Space" reveals why the label had such confidence in the 28-year-old wunderkind. The distinctive song resonates with feeling and with a bright, open arrangement that pulls attention to the dramatic, bluntly honest narrative. "I wanted the song to have a raw intimacy to it, like you're hearing a private conversation at a really emotional moment between a woman and her man," she says. "We've all heard someone say 'I need some space.' I wanted the song to show the hurt you feel when someone says that, but I wanted the reaction of the woman to show strength and not just pain. I think that is how a lot of women I know would react to those words." Buxton drew on experience when crafting the song, which she co-wrote with veteran hit songwriters Chuck Cannon and Lari White. "The idea came from a conversation I had with my boyfriend," Buxton says, her eyes flashing with cheeky insight. "I wanted to talk about some issues we were having. I felt it was important that he understood where I was coming from; because we kept having the same issues come up over and over. I wanted to clear these things out of our way. But we got into the conversation, and all of a sudden he says, 'You know what? I just need a little space.' It was like a dagger to the heart." As any good songwriter would, Buxton put her experience and emotions into a new song. "My reaction was, 'OK, you want space, oh I'll give you space! So much space you'll wonder where the heck I went," she recounts. "Lari and Chuck were real comfortable letting the song reflect what I had felt. I wanted it to be about the woman granting the man the space he said he wanted. To me, that's an act of strength and independence." For the recording, Buxton thought the arrangement needed a spare instrumental introduction that focused attention on the emotions of the words and vocal performance. "I wanted 'Space' to have space," she says with another laugh. "I didn't want the track to be real busy and have a lot of stuff going on. I didn't want anything to take the listener's ear off the vocal. My favorite country records are ones that don't feel like they've been thought over too much. That's what I wanted for this song." Buxton's instincts tend to serve her well. As a co-writer of Keith Urban's Top 5 hit, "Stupid Boy," the Kansas native has followed her heart and ignored conventional ways of doing things before, and the result was something that stood out as fresh and distinctive. "Space" resonates with those same qualities. Urban remains an active and enthusiastic supporter, and he invited Sarah to appear on the 2008 ACM Awards with him during his performance of the song "Tu Compania" - reenacting the same role she played on the recorded version of the song. The Australian-born country music star also surprised the crowd at the ACM-sponsored New Artists' Party for the Cause benefit concert in Las Vegas, where Urban jumped on stage during Buxton's set and performed two songs with her. Dierks Bentley paid a similar compliment to Buxton by asking her to record a duet with him, another rarity for a new artist. She recorded "Sweet and Wild" with Bentley for his album Greatest Hits/Every Mile a Memory, and performed the song live with him on NBC's The Today Show and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. Also, the ABC-TV series Men in Trees noticed Buxton's special talent by integrating her song "Love Is a Trip" into promos for the show. "Country music is in such an interesting place, and I'm so happy to be a part of it," Buxton says. "Pop music is so groove-oriented these days. Country music has that energy to it, but it also has melodies and real stories and true emotions. The music is so rich and has so many possibilities. I hear Sugarland, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Dierks Bentley, Lady Antebellum and so many other young artists, and I think, 'I love that music. That's what I want be a part of. That's where I belong.'"
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