This Folk Supergroup Is About to Perform in Denver

Everything I’m With Her touches turns to gold.

The folk supergroup of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins debuted in 2018 behind the hit record See You Around and quickly took home an award for Group of the Year, courtesy of the American Music Association. Then, the 2019 single “Call My Name” won a Grammy for Best American Roots Song in 2020 while also being nominated for Best American Roots Performance that year.

Not to mention, as successful solo artists, Jarosz, O’Donovan and Watkins can count seven Grammys and 31 nominations between them, so it’s not too surprising that teaming up together has resulted in more gilded gramophones.

Now, after seven years between LPs, I’m With Her is back at it with its sophomore offering, Wild and Clear and Blue, released via Rounder Records in May. And guess what: Lead single “Ancient Light” already claimed Song of the Year at the 2025 Americana Honors & Awards last month.

The group is coming through Denver on Wednesday, October 15, for a show at the Paramount Theatre. Uganda-born, Austin-based singer-songwriter Jon Muq is also on the bill.

As Jarosz points out, a refreshing part about I’m With Her, and a reason for all the accolades, is that the trio focuses on writing all original material together.

“I think it’s important for this band. From the beginning, we’ve always been conscious of not wanting it to be to what happens sometimes in supergroup situations where it’s just different arrangements of pre-existing songs,” she says. “We always wanted to create our own music as a band that’s unique to the three of us.”

While the seven-year gap between albums looks long from the outside, the work that went into Wild and Clear and Blue initially started in 2021 and continued during three separate writing retreats through 2023.

“From our perspective, it doesn’t feel like a hiatus,” says Jarosz, who plays banjo, mandolin and guitar. “As soon as things opened up enough for us to be together again, we set aside some days in LA to reconnect.

“We weren’t putting a ton of pressure on ourselves to come out of that first retreat with a ton of songs,” she continues. “We really just wanted to see where our heads and hearts were at. So even though it’s technically been several years since the last one, it feels like we’ve been constantly chipping away at this album during the little breaks that we have between our own solo projects.”

Following the deaths of John Prine and Nanci Griffith, I’m With Her felt inspired to honor the Americana icons, and it had them thinking about life, too. “They’re both huge heroes of ours and influenced all of our music,” Jarosz shares, adding that the title track is a kind of homage to her and Griffith’s home state of Texas and the Brazos River.

“We were describing the river as wild and clear and blue,” she continues. “To me it also just describes life so beautifully and simply. There are times that are wild and chaotic. There’s time where you feel like there’s clarity and things are clicking into place. There are times to be blue and [for] grief and loss. To have it all together, it all winds like a river creating a life.”

It’s also indicative of all the life the three have experienced together after musically meeting for the first time during the 2014 Telluride Bluegrass Festival. And even since See You Around, both O’Donovan and Watkins welcomed children into the world, while Jarosz gotten married. It’s all poured into Wild and Clear and Blue, a more mature I’m With Her, with such songs as “Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive)” and “Sisters of the Night Watch.”

“We had not lived as much life together when we wrote our first album. I feel like this record just touches on life cycles and death and grief and joy,” Jarosz explains, pointing to the chorus of “Year After Year” that muses “if not now, when?” in relation to prioritizing timed with loved ones.

“That first record, which I love and is close to all of our hearts, was capturing us discovering our sound that we can make as the three of us,” she concludes. “Whereas this record does feel like we dove deeper on the songwriting front. Time goes on, we’re older, a lot of life has happened.”

I’m With Her, with Jon Muq, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 15, Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place. Tickets are $55-$75.