Sarah Borges leaves an impression

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Sometimes an unheralded young talent can take even the old pros by surprise. That’s exactly what happened in Nashville recently.

Los Angeles-based Sin City Marketing was throwing a show at the Exit Inn during the Americana Music Assn. conference. During the company’s all-hands-on-deck affair, a slip of a girl named Sarah Borges took the stage, plugged in her guitar for a few numbers, uncorked a wall-rattling wail and blew everybody’s head off.

A veteran and not unjaded record distributor, watched the performance in slack-jawed bedazzlement. As many in the Exit Inn house did, he showed up the following night for Borges’ official AMA show at the Basement -- ignoring a gig by one of his company’s own acts in the process. At the end of the show, he stood outside the club, waiting for Borges to sign a copy of her Blue Corn Music debut “Silver City” for him.

“I never do this,” the distributor said with a sheepish smile.

Seeing Borges blast through her show was not unlike seeing Maria McKee knock the joint down when she fronted Lone Justice during the glory days of L.A. cowpunk in the early ’80s. Borges brings a similar star power to her own brand of contemporary roots-rock, which draws on a wealth of sparkling musical influences.

“It’s like a square meal,” says Borges, calling from Henrietta, Okla., on her way to a show in Oklahoma City. ”You’ve got to have your meat and your potatoes and your vegetables.”

Just 27, the raven-haired singer-guitarist has been performing for a decade, since she went off to Emerson College in Boston, where she studied musical theater (which may account for her enormous stage presence). She got her start in indie-rock bands but gravitated toward the more interesting mix of sounds at play in a solid group of originals and covers.

Borges is an enormous fan of the L.A. punk band X and performs a smoky rendition of the group’s “Come Back to Me” in her set. (In Nashville, she expressed disappointment that she missed meeting X members Exene Cervenka and John Doe, who were in town the night before with their side project the Knitters.) She says, “That whole aesthetic was very appealing to me.”

She also admires “strong woman icons -- (rockabilly and country singer) Wanda Jackson would be a prime example.” A soulful version of Mahalia Jackson’s “I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About in My Song” appears on “Silver City.” But she’s also fond of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard and Bob Dylan, whose “Outlaw Blues” gets a storming, usually set-closing cover.

Since Houston-based Blue Corn issued “Silver City” in March, Borges and her group (which includes members of Jake Brennan & the Confidence Men and the dizzying guitarist and steel player Mike Castellana) have put in plenty of road work. The unit appeared at the South by Southwest festival in March and made spring and late-summer tour swings.

“Every couple of months we go out and do as much of the country as (our money) allows,” Borges says. Here’s hoping it allows for a promised West Coast swing before year’s end. This is one performer nobody should miss -- she’s the goods.

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