Sara Watkins

Nickel Creek and beyond

Sara Ullrika Watkins was born on June 8, 1981 in Vista, California, and plays fiddle, guitar, ukulele and percussion as well as singing. She made her debut in 1989 as the fiddler of Nickel Creek, with her brother Sean Watkins and Chris Thile. Their albums are Little Cowpoke (1993), Here to There (1997), Nickel Creek (2000), This Side (2002), Why Should the Fire Die? (2005), A Dotted Line (2014) and Celebrants (2023), with a hiatus of about seven years after 2007. From 2000 to 2004 she also played in Mutual Admiration Society with Thile, Sean Watkins, Glen Phillips, John Paul Jones and Pete Thomas.

Her solo career began with Sara Watkins, produced by John Paul Jones, with recording starting in February 2008 in Nashville and Los Angeles; she signed to Nonesuch that fall and the album came out on April 7, 2009. Works Progress Administration, a band, released WPA in September 2009. She toured the Transatlantic Sessions with Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain in January and February 2010, ending at the Royal Festival Hall in London on February 6, and made her first Prairie Home Companion appearance on August 28, 2011 at the Minnesota State Fair. She toured with the Decemberists in 2011 and Jackson Browne in 2012 and 2013. She played violin and sang on John Mayer's "A Face to Call Home" in 2012.

Sun Midnight Sun followed on May 8, 2012. Watkins Family Hour, with Sean, plays regular shows at Largo in Los Angeles and has released albums in 2015, 2020 and 2022. She formed I'm With Her with Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan in 2015; their albums are See You Around (2018) and Wild and Clear and Blue (2025). Young in All the Wrong Ways (New West, July 1, 2016) reached 1 on Heatseekers, and Americana named her Instrumentalist of the Year in 2016. Under the Pepper Tree, a children's album, came out on March 26, 2021. Session credits in 2020 and 2021 include Phoebe Bridgers's "Graceland Too" and the Killers' Pressure Machine.