February 19, 2018

Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins Just Released Something Beautiful

Review: The glowing harmonies of their trio, I’m With Her, are reason enough to listen.

Album Review
I’m With Her
See You Around
Rounder

There are plenty of reasons to love See You Around, the sparkling collaboration of veteran solo artists Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins. The acoustic musicianship is wonderfully virtuosic, yet nicely understated, with plenty of bracing fiddle and mandolin embedded in the textures of the songs. The material is smart, concise, and catchy, with the trio co-writing nearly all the tunes. But the most compelling reason to return to this refreshing album again and again is simply the interplay of the women’s voices, which ebb and flow in glowing harmonies that recapture the exuberant immediacy of people making music together for the pure pleasure of it. While traditionalists will applaud, of course, anybody in need of a quick shot of joy should give a listen.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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