Sophie Gault
Sophie Gault is a timeless musician for the modern age — a singer/songwriter, storyteller, and guitarist whose music finds a balance between amplified Americana and rootsy folk. Drawing upon influences like Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, John Mayer, Neko Case, Ryan Adams, and the Rolling Stones, Sophie and the Broken Things finds Gault taking stock of the present, the path that brought her to Nashville, and the memories she picked up along the way. It’s an EP of original music, rooted in confident guitar playing, Gault’s unforced vocals, autobiographical lyrics, and light touches of B3 organ, upright piano, and some beautifully subtle glockenspiel. At the center of that sound, though, is Gault herself: a small-town native with a big sound and an even bigger future, making sense of the world around her through song.
The nostalgic, timeless feel of Gault’s songwriting and guitar skill is fueled by early years spent living on a Maryland farm – cultivated through many afternoons listening to and imitating the likes of Freddie King and Keith Richards, as well as a musical bond Gault shared with her father since childhood.
“My dad was big into music and he was really big into blues and early 60s rock and stuff like that,” Gault says. So that’s what he always played and we would play together. I [channel] a lot of his riffs that he taught me so it always will come out in my playing and my singing like, ‘Ooo, that’s from back home, definitely from back home’.”
Right from the unfurling of opener “Golden Rule,” the atmosphere of a memory begins to descend, as a delicate finger-style hook from Gault's acoustic guitar and the hazy reverberations of notes from an electric fill the room with a contemplative energy, preparing the listener for the grippingly relatable stories to come.