Sarah Jarosz//Margaret Glaspy

“I used to be more concerned with how the words matched the music. Now I’m more concerned with what I’m saying, what story I’m telling.”—Sarah Jarosz.

For both Sarah Jarosz and Margaret Glaspy, the creative process doesn’t allow for much off time. Jarosz doesn’t write on tour: it’s where she collects her ideas. And when she gets home, she sifts through all those ideas. “Even if I’m not working on a song, I’m always checking into the creative process every day,” Jarosz told me.

Glaspy uses improvisation as a part of her songwriting process, “acting like I know how the song is supposed to go,” she says. Glaspy has a carefully curated space in her house where she writes songs, and she uses 15 minutes blocks of time in which she plays without stopping to flesh our her ideas.

Jarosz is a three-time GRAMMY winner (Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Performance in 2017, and Best American Roots Song in 2019). Her album World on the Ground (Rounder Records) was released in June 2020. Glaspy’s latest album Devotion (ATO Records) was released in March 2020.

SIDE NOTE: you'll hear Jarosz and Glaspy use the phrases "everyone in our field is jobless," "when you lose your job, it's stressful," and "the reality of losing my job got me really down." This is the first time I've heard songwriters use those words, so if you have the means, do what you can to support your favorite artists so we can see them back on the road!

Jarosz and Glaspy have known each other since they were teenagers, so this was a fun conversation!