A Vermont musician released an album, planned a big tour. Then came the cancer diagnosis
MIDDLEBURY ― This year was looking bright for Sarah King.
The Ripton musician released her first solo, full-length album in March that got mentioned by a prominent pop-culture website in the same article touting Beyonce’s new release. King was planning a national tour to rival the big one she took in 2023 to launch the blues/folk/rock musician’s career toward a higher level.
Then, this spring, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
King, 40, had been experiencing problems with her voice for about a year. Her vocal stamina had waned. Her throat tightened, as if she were wearing a tight turtleneck that felt like it was choking her all the time. Doctors couldn’t find anything specific until this year, when a specialist in Boston determined she had cancer that happens to be near the larynx that means everything to a singer. Almost all her plans, including that big tour, went out the window.
King did keep one important date. She plays Saturday, July 27, as part of Vermont rocker Grace Potter’s Grand Point North concert series at Waterfront Park in Burlington. Days later, she’ll have surgery to remove lymph nodes. Six to eight weeks after that she’ll endure a second surgery to take out her thyroid gland, which regulates hormones. She’ll be on medication for the rest of her life, and out of commission from her musical career for about six months. What condition she’ll be in to resume that career remains a frustrating mystery.
In a conversation over lunch in Middlebury, King discussed how much the Grand Point North show matters to her. It lets her shine in front of music fans in her current home state, just before she goes on a hiatus not of her choosing.
“I kind of joke around that I feel like sometimes I’m like Vermont’s best-kept secret because nobody knows I’m here,” King said. “They don’t know I live here because I don’t play in Vermont very often, so I was like, ‘This is a great opportunity to bring the full band together and hopefully get in front of a great crowd of folks and just really fill my cup before surgery.’”
“My surgery is literally four days after the show.”
(This one-hour conversation has been edited for conciseness and clarity.)
Missing the total eclipse, hearing ‘cancer’
Burlington Free Press: When was this that you were in Boston and had that diagnosis?
Sarah King: (laughs) You ready for this? April Fool’s Day.
BFP: You were kind of hoping it was all a big joke.
SK: Mm-hmm. That was three days after the record came out and I’m pretty sure the first thing I said to the doctor was, “I don’t have time for this.” (laughs) I just released an album, I’m going on tour. What are you doing?”
So that was like the prelim diagnosis. I missed the eclipse (April 8) because my head was in a CAT scan machine getting confirmation of the fact (cancer) had spread to my lymph nodes. I have never had a doctor call me back that fast and be like, “You need to come back for more stuff.” So that’s how we knew it was bad.
BFP: How do you then react to that, hearing it’s more serious than you realize?
SK: My whole thing was like, literally, “Cancer on the moneymaker?” I think I held it together pretty well at the doctor’s office because I was kind of in shock. But I kind of knew, too, from when he first called me, like, after the ultrasound, the next morning he said, “We need you back” and I looked at the ultrasound images and I kind of knew something was wrong.
I got in the car and I had a four-hour drive back – and again it’s the eclipse day, because that was the day I got the confirmation – and all the cars are going the opposite direction (with people returning toward Boston after seeing the eclipse in Vermont) and everyone’s just had the most amazing life experience ever, and I screamed and cried and said all sorts of things I don’t think my car has ever heard before or since (laughs), basically just railed against the whole thing. I was like, “This can’t be happening, like, there is no way.” I started writing songs in my head already about the experience and what I was feeling.
Writing new songs, facing the unknown
BFP: There has to be a lot of material that you will mine from this, and it’s not necessarily about cancer but it’s about the feelings that it stirs in you.
SK: I’ve already started to write songs that are even darker and more diving into that, because I’m just facing my own mortality right now. This is the first time that I feel like I’m not invincible, like I can’t plan for the future because I don’t know what it looks like. It’s different than, “Oh, any day I can be hit by a bus.” I’m like, if I book a tour now, I still might have to cancel it. What if it takes a long time to get my medication dialed in and I’m too exhausted to drive for a tour, you know? What if I do have nerve injury but it’s temporary but we don’t know how long it will last? There is just too many unknowns, and I’m like, “Wow, like, I’m not invincible. Let’s do all the things now I can to enjoy.” I’m learning to let go, because I’m very much a future person, I’m always planning for what’s next, and it’s hard for me to not do that right now.
I have really been struggling with that because with an album release and a tour you are expected to make a splash, right? I did the crowdfunding thing, that was a wild success. So many people came together and supported everything and now I’m like, “Cool, guys – not doing anything about it!” And I feel like I’m just going to fall off the face of the planet after putting all of this time and effort into the record. That feeling I’m not pushing out enough content and I’m not staying consistent, I’m not staying relevant, and that I will become irrelevant simply because of my health ? that is very scary to me.
Someone may have heard a Sarah King song and been like “That’s cool, where can we see her on tour? Oh, doesn’t look like she’s touring,” and then they’ll forget about me. And then I’m like, “Wow, I wasted everybody’s time and money in making this record.” That’s been very hard.
I’ve been rolling this Sisyphean boulder up the hill for a long time and it’s about to flatten me all the way back down (laughs). I’m like, “Oh, man, just when I was almost at the top!”
‘When It All Goes Down,’ future plans
BFP: What is the name of the (new) album?
SK: “When It All Goes Down.”
BFP: Hmm. You can draw that for a title of what you’re about to go through.
SK: There’s a lot of stuff on the record that feels a little bit like past Sarah writing for future Sarah. That (title) song was about doctors not listening to women and like, oh my God, here we are, a year after I said something’s wrong with me and we finally find out what it is. The line that is like “I’ll be standing up to the devil when it all goes down” has definitely taken on new meaning because this cancer in my throat is the devil I’m standing up to right now.
The song on there called “Stronger Than You Ever Knew” is about getting through grief. I’m definitely dealing with, like, a “pre-grief” right now, like grief for my life before cancer. So that’s a song that’s been hard to sing live without getting misty-eyed. Most of my songs are dark and heavy and that one’s like (adopts light tone in voice) “You’re stronger than you ever knew,” it’s a little beam of sunshine.
BFP: I would think to stay sane through this you have to think, “Here’s what I want to do after if all goes well.” Once you get things going after the winter, what would you like to happen if all goes well?
SK: I’m hoping that next year will look like this year was supposed to. I’m still working with my team to get stuff out as far as applications for festivals and stuff for next year that just had to go off the table this year. That would be ideal. Hopefully I’ll be able to record a little bit, even just some live recordings, because I think once I have my new voice or my, like, cancer/post-surgery voice, just doing a couple of live recordings to be like “Guys, I’m still here, I’m still singing, this is how I sound now.” I’d like to do that.
Really, it’s just to get back out on the road. Performing live is my favorite thing in the world, so for that to be taken away from me has been one of the things that I have on purpose been mentally avoiding the most thinking about. That’s why again I’m doing this show now and hoping that will kind of sustain me through the times when I’m just feeling uncertain.
Playing Grace Potter’s Grand Point North
BFP: You’ve got this one big show you’re planning. What do you expect from it?
SK: I kept the show schedule light once I was diagnosed. Anything that wasn’t already announced I just took off the calendar because I wanted to focus on staying healthy, being as healthy as I can now. These few solo shows I have had since the diagnosis have been really emotional. A lot of the songs on the record, you know, are about standing up to challenges and feeling stronger and more powerful.
We’re bringing some of the heavier songs that are on the record, which I don’t do solo because they just don’t land the same without a drum kit. In my mind I can picture being in the park and it’s late afternoon, becoming the golden hour. Hot summer evenings are my absolute favorite to play music in from my time (living) in Georgia. Heat and music just work for me. I just wanna be up there sweaty and gross and leaving it all out there.
I will be saying from the stage that this is my last show until my surgery because I’m sure there’s going to be a whole bunch of people there who don’t know me, to just kind of drive home why this show’s so important for me. Whether or not they know me or they care or anything I just hope that people will kind of get pumped up about that and be just like, “All right, cool, we’re just gonna scream and clap our hands (laughs).”
BFP: Did you think about not doing GPN?
SK: It crossed my mind briefly when the doctor was like, you know, “We can wait until August, I can’t see you until July.” There was part of me that was like, “OK, well, if you can see me two weeks before the show maybe I should just do it immediately.” But then I was like, “I know that I need this.”
I made the decision that day and I talked to my vocal coach about it and I said, “Do we think that I should still do this show even though I’m not singing the way I want?” and she said, “For your mental health, do it. The singing is going to be so powerful and that’s going to carry you through,” and she’s right. Even though I’ve only had one show per month since the diagnosis it’s been enough. If I didn’t have it and I was just like, “Oh, well, that’s it,” and then I had surgery I’d be like (laughs), “What am I doing with my life?”
On the days when I’m like, “Oh, my God, this sucks, I’m never gonna sing again, I feel awful, I’m tired, my medication sucks, I hate driving to Boston, blah blah blah,” that I can look back and be like, “This is temporary. You’re gonna get back to that feeling. It might take some time but that’s not the only show that’s ever going to feel like that. You’re gonna come out of this stronger and you’re gonna be back doing it soon.”
BFP: That’s great that you see it as “I’ll be doing that again.”
SK: This is my temporary farewell. I’m probably building it up so much in my head right now because I want it to go so well so that I can just be like, “Cool, we’re gonna get back there,” ya know? I don’t want to build it up so much and then have it – watch it get rained out, thunderstorm, and I don’t even get to do the show! (laughs heartily)
If you go
WHAT: Grace Potter with Michael Marcagi, Henry Jamison, Sarah King, The Bubs and Copilot
WHEN: 4:30 p.m. Saturday, July 27
WHERE: Waterfront Park, Burlington
INFORMATION: $52-$199; free for children 12 and under. www.highergroundmusic.com
(Grace Potter is also playing Waterfront Park at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, July 28 with Anderson East, Ali McGuirk, Acqua Mossa, the All Night Boogie Band and Marcie Hernandez. Potter announced July 16 that proceeds from both shows will benefit Vermont flood relief through her new Grand Point Foundation.)
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont musician Sarah King to play concert days before cancer surgery
