Sarah White is a singer-songwriter based in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose music can be roughly characterized as folk or alt-country.
She was born in Warrenton, Virginia, and relocated as a child to Monroe County, West Virginia. When she returned to Virginia she became involved with the growing music community in Charlottesville and played in several bands towards the end of the 90's (White Trash Cookin', Pat Nixon, Miracle Penny). At the time the record label Jagjaguwar was based out of Charlottesville (before moving to Indiana to merge with Secretly Canadian) and released her first solo album in 1997, a collection of lo-fi four-track recordings made over a 3-year period dubbed All My Skies Are Blue.
In 2000, she released her second album, also on Jagjaguwar, entitled Bluebird which was more melodic and was recorded in a studio. The record garnered her a wide range of positive reviews and comparisons to artists like Cat Power and Edith Frost. Later that year she recorded and self-released Pickin' Strummin' And Singin'... The Versatile Sarah White which was a collection of early country standards and traditional songs.
After remaining fairly quiet for the next several years, Sarah White returned with a new band, Sarah White & the Pearls, in 2004 with the self-released You're It EP which focused even further on melodic writing and incorporated the more traditional folk and country song structures. In 2006 she completed her next full-length album with The Pearls, White Light, which was released by Antenna Farm Records. She also performs with Sían Richards in the Acorn Sisters.
Sarah White's song Sweetheart won best song in Mountain Stage's annual Newsong Festival in 2007.