summer
|
fall
73
spent life on the road for their first decade
together.
But after making the third Sarah Lee
& Johnny record together – 2013’s
Wassaic
Way
, which was produced by Wilco’s Jeff
Tweedy – the extended touring schedule
and demands made it much harder on the
kids, who were no longer little.
That’s how they landed in Montecito.
“Gail suggested we drop the kids off at
their house while we were going overseas,”
Irion recalled. “We were home-schooling
them at the time, but after awhile she
enrolled them at Montecito Union because
she got too busy and the kids were getting
bored.”
That changed everything.
“It’s an amazing school, so supportive
and community-oriented,” Irion said.
“There’s such a texture of artists and other
active people here. We fell in love.”
When they returned from the tour,
not wanting to pull the girls out of school,
the family stayed until that summer, living
at first in the Steinbecks’ home and then a
cottage. Naturally, having the offspring of
two great families of American letters in
the same house produced some interesting
conversations.
“I never knew John, of course, but I’ve
learned a lot from my uncle,” Irion said.
“He’s been something of a personal professor
for me, in the way I read literature, view
topics, and write. And it’s rubbed off on
my songwriting. I can’t say enough on the
educational influence he’s had on me.”
Despite growing up a Guthrie, Sarah
Lee has also found a new perspective via the
Steinbecks. “It makes you think about those
kinds of things, and we’ve learned so much
from Thom and his stories. The messages of
his family and mine definitely go hand in
hand.”
Although they no longer live in the
Steinbeck household, the Guthrie-Irion
family was back in Montecito full time this
past academic year, one which saw Olivia
now matriculating at Santa Barbara Middle
School after aging out of MUS.
But there was another attraction in
Montecito: local architect Nate Modisette,
who is also a bassist with whom Irion had
played when he first came out to Los Angeles
in 1997.
In fact, after
Wassaic Way
– which
was an edgier record due to Tweedy’s
contributions – failed to put the Guthrie-
Irion duo over the top on the fractured
musical map, Irion decided to record an
album with Modisette and other Santa
Barbara residents under his long-favored
U.S. Elevator moniker.
“It was a friend’s idea to separate
the rock and the folk because of how the
business is these days,” he explained. “They
never knew where to categorize us as a genre,
anyway.”
Montecito shows up all over the U.S.
Elevator album that came out last fall,
in such songs as “Momma-Cito Blues” –
PROFILES
