Singer/guitarist Sarah Borges is, shall we say, a very active performer. Borges, who plays Raleigh's Berkeley Cafe on Tuesday, spends a good bit of time moving about the stage and climbing things, which is one reason why she wears cowboy boots rather than high heels onstage. But she comes by her performance tendencies honestly, having studied music theater at Boston's Emerson College -- although it wasn't something she actually enjoyed.
"Oh, that was so competitive, it scared me," she says. "There was a lot of auditioning and stuff like that, which is not how music is to me. So I was terrible at it. I don't think I'm as good at that kind of singing as the playing and singing that I do now. I was good at the improv and ad-libbing, but not at 'reciting with feeling.'"
Another indirect vestige of Borge's college days can be found on her new album, "The Stars Are Out" (Sugar Hill Records). One of the album's five covers is "Ride With Me" by the Lemonheads, who were a hugely popular hometown band in Boston during Borges' college days.
"We had a huge Lemonheads poster in our room," she recalls. "So it was great to be from Boston and record a song by a big Boston band. Plus my boys in the band do three-part harmony on that one, so I was able to get them out of their shells and singing like choir boys. Although it turns out I've been playing that song wrong since I was 18 -- wrong words, wrong words. I feel good about finally getting it right, after playing it wrong for so long."
For more, see the interview in Friday's paper.
