Art is as much about personal discovery as it is personal expression. Fort Worth singer/songwriter Sherilyn Segrest knows this as much as anyone. She’s mostly remembered as part of the band Deadman, where she supported frontman Steven Collins in music and in life. But after their marriage broke up, Segrest found herself alone in the spotlight for the first time. That exciting fresh start in her personal life didn’t necessarily carry over to her artistic life.
“I really loved Deadman’s music,” Segrest says, “but that was not an environment in which I was writing songs.” She was, however, a vital part of the band’s sound. Her sultry-yet-spooky backing vocals and Lanois-laced keys and omnichord set the band’s tone as much as Steven’s brooding and spiritually tinged lyrics. But, she lacked the confidence to contribute anything more to Deadman. “I was unsure of myself or that I had anything to add in a world so full of songs,” She says. “I lacked the confidence and encouragement to write.”
Sherilyn left the band, the recording studio and coffee shop they had opened in Central Texas, and the marriage, and returned to North Texas to start over. She found an apartment, “the type one lives in when [one] goes through a divorce,” and began working on songs. Although she would sometimes practice the songs on the grand piano in her building’s lobby, she was still too nervous to branch out further than that. “I felt immensely shy about reconnecting with the Dallas music scene after my divorce,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I had any musician friends left.”
She had no problem making new friends, though. She was soon approached by Fort Worth’s Telegraph Canyon, and ended up playing keyboards for them for a year. That year was instrumental in Segrest regaining her confidence and being reminded of how much she missed performing. This new-found confidence also led to continued growth as a songwriter. “I was starting over in so many ways in my life in those days, and I found for the first time that songwriting filled me with such joy and satisfaction,” she says. After leaving Telegraph Canyon, the next step was to record. “I knew for me to connect with music,” she says, “I really want to explore the songs I had been writing on my own.”
According to all involved, the studio experience couldn’t have gone better. “Recording went very much how i think classic sessions went,” says drummer Grady Sandlin. “Some things were still uneasy or unfinished-sounding at rehearsal. Once we started rolling and listening back, discussing parts with [producer Justin Collins], it really started to groove…It was effortless.” Collins concurs: “She’s no stranger to the [studio] environment…Even though I hadn’t worked with Sherilyn before, the atmosphere during the session was completely relaxed.”
The result is her new E.P., Through The Night. It’s also the result of her re-entering the North Texas music community. Recorded at the notable Denton studio Echo Lab and featuring Sandlin’s RTB2 cohort Ryan Thomas Becker, it’s a powerful record that serves a southern-fried helping of Emmylou Harris-style Americana mixed with Nina Simone-infused soul.
While only five songs, Through The Night is a thorough document of Segrest’s new life. The E.P. begins with “Saddest Song”, a ballad about how music might serve as therapy, how “the pen could help me heal/that somehow it would seem less real”, but ultimately, “those words just made me cry”. “Marilee” is similarly about a woman looking for meaning, a “spark she can’t replace”, while the singer pleads with with Marilee to stay so she could help Marilee through her troubled time.
There are more hopeful, uplifting parts of the record as well. “Because Of You” is a rollicking, soulful tune about finding hope and direction, and “West Wind” finds the singer guided by an unseen force moving through her life. The finale, “Comfort Me”, is a call to the healing power of music, of Melody, to make one whole again.
Ultimately, this album acknowledges Good, and strives to connect, or re-connect, to it. It’s an oblation in thanksgiving, that “Because of You” the singer’s spirit is revived. Music is the sanctifying element on Through The Night, the source of grace and renewal that can take a broken person and make her whole again.
And Sherilyn insists that she is renewed. She has journeyed though a period of isolation and self-doubt and emerged all the stronger for it. “These days,” she says, “I’m feeling strong and so much more sure.” As her calendar fills up with gigs and Through The Night racks up accolades, the future is nothing if not bright. “This is where I am now,” Segrest says, “on the other side of a dark night, awake and ready to start a new day.”
