Фолк-певица Сара Макколоч записала новый альбом в синагоге Холливуда

Folk singer Sarah McCulloch was looking for a South Florida venue that was small and intimate to record her latest album, “Live With The White Knuckle Flyers.” Chatting on the way home from November’s Florida Winter Music Festival in Brooksville, McCulloch’s friend, Elyse Brunt, suggested a small chapel at Temple Beth El of Hollywood for the taping session. It met all the criteria: The space seats only 76 people, has excellent acoustics, and has a small stage with a vibrant backdrop of stained glass. McCulloch loved the idea. She was familiar with the venue from “Songs in the Chapel,” a Beth El concert series recorded in partnership with the South Florida Folk & Acoustic Music Club. Thus the 69-year-old Reform Jewish congregation became a live studio on March 21 for the folk musician’s newest song collection, which is scheduled for release on Aug. 7. “It was perfect,” McCulloch said of the recording site and concert, attended by a full house of congregants, invited guests and members of the public. “These songs were meant to be played live. We had some starts and stops. We had to re-record two songs. But I wanted people to hear the imperfections, the emotion, and the spirit of the room exactly as it happened.” The album, recorded with the White Knuckle Flyers, a Florida folk band, features music from McCulloch’s three previous albums and two new songs written for the live show: “Cherokee Rose,” about an illicit affair, and “Sure To Be A Rainbow,” which explores optimism in the face of life’s difficulties. This song is one of Brunt’s favorites. “She’s such a good storyteller with her songs,” Brunt said. “You can picture yourself there. Listening to the lyrics is like watching a movie.” Although she lived in Buffalo, New York, when her first album debuted in 2018, most of McCulloch’s music explores her deep connection to South Florida, where she was raised and now lives. McCulloch was born in Miami and grew up in northeastern Collier County, on Florida’s west coast, on 20 acres of land. Her home was built of cypress wood milled at her father’s sawmill; the family lived in the Everglades and near the Seminole Tribe of Florida. McCulloch said their house had no electricity when they first moved in in the 1970s and no home phone until she went to college. “I grew up very isolated,” she said. “I was homeschooled until the seventh grade. My parents dropped out of society.” She graduated from Clewiston High School, in Hendry County, and attended The College of Wooster in Ohio, the same college where her parents met. Her memories of growing up serve as abundant fodder for her lyrics. As she writes in one of her signature songs, “Hippie Tattoo”: Now I was raised in the country but we wasn’t no trash, Cause Daddy had Jesus and Mama had class, Now Daddy was a worker but he didn’t have sons, So he raised me like I was one, Change your own oil and play the guitar, Do what you love and be who you are, Now we mighta had an engine hangin’ from a tree, But now I got two college degrees, And a hippie tattoo, Oh, yes, I do. Although she is working to develop her following, McCulloch, 50, still has a day job: She’s a school psychologist, doing evaluations for Lee County Schools through a third-party contractor. She’s also the primary caregiver for her autistic son, Elijah, 22. Music critics have described her style as “ultra-country” and “country crossover.” But McCulloch said she has no desire to live in America’s country music capital, Nashville. “I don’t feel I need to move to Nashville to be a songwriter. You need a fan base where you live. All of that has to be in place before you become a money-maker,” she said. McCulloch, a Pembroke Pines resident, said she is deeply connected to the local folk scene; she’s a longtime member of the South Florida Folk & Acoustic Music Club, where Jeff Jacob, Temple Beth El’s executive director, is president of the board. Jacob said he is thrilled the synagogue’s little chapel has become associated with community gatherings filled with high-quality music. Jacob is also a singer-songwriter and leads the synagogue’s folk-rock worship band, JewGrass Revival. He said the congregation plans to start a Jewish Music and Spoken Word Coffeehouse in the chapel in the coming year. “We were so glad we were able to open this up to the congregation and the community,” Jacob said. “It was a real look-behind-the-curtain” of how an album is made, he said. McCulloch said there’s nowhere else she would rather have recorded. “South Florida is my home,” she said.