Cosy Sheridan reminds us to take a moment and a breath

Remember to ask yourself: Are you taking time to breathe? Musician and singer Cosy Sheridan's latest album — The Breathing Room — was borne of just that: finding that moment of breath. Sheridan remembered in an interview: "My voice teacher Sloan Wainwright watched me sing, and, at the end of my song, she looked at me for a minute and said, 'When are you breathing?' I wrote the song, 'The Breathing Room,' the next day because I was thinking about the very thing that the chorus asks: 'When are you breathing? How are you breathing?'" Marking her 15th studio album, Sheridan and her band will bring The Breathing Room to the Dublin Community Center on Saturday April 25 at 7 p.m. Additional information and tickets can be found at dubhub-nh.org. Of course, even after recording the album, she realized she would need to take a few more deep breaths — but this time, with a bit more meaning and reflection. "Ironically," she said, "after we had finished recording the album, I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. The act of breathing became central to me; it felt like a moment of kismet or synchronicity." Finding her Folk At nine years old, living in Concord, Sheridan's babysitter and neighbor taught her how to play guitar. Her world changed forever. "She [babysitter] introduced me to folk music — to The Highwaymen's 'Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,' Bob Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' and songs like that," she said. Then, music went mobile, and she found her beat: "My older brother had one of the first Walkmans," Sheridan said. "He put the headphones on my head, introduced me to Bonnie Raitt's album Streetlights, and I was hooked. I have been a big Bonnie Raitt fan ever since; she was probably my first hero." As a teenager, Sheridan's guitar teacher, Eric Sinclair, encouraged her to play open mic nights across the New Hampshire coast. A then-senior Phillips Exeter Academy, Sheridan focused her senior thesis on making a demo tape showcasing her performance at her many local gigs. "I remember my father had to drive over from Concord to accompany me into the bars because I was underage," she said. "I'm not sure if I 'knew' then that it was my calling, but I knew I liked performing." Finding her Joy For Sheridan, folk music has given her quite a bit. As she noted, it also gave her the ability to make a living, to be a teacher and to become an established independent artist. She cites the courage it often takes — and as a learned muscle — to put herself and her art into the world for consumption and to meet her goals as an artist. "[This career] taught me how to be brave and, for example, drive across the country alone to play a concert," she said. In addition, Sheridan found significant joy in teaching and connecting with burgeoning musicians — a calling for and giving of knowledge and craft, a way she believes to give back to the folk music community. She started teaching songwriting, guitar, and performance in the late 90s, helping students learn to write lyrics and compose a song. With a guitar always in her hand, Sheridan has now worked with countless students and established musicians who play and live across the world. But, most importantly: "Folk music has given me the joy of playing guitar, which is one of my favorite things to do," she said. "I love to sit and curl up around my guitar." Finding her Community In 2008 Sheridan started Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah and recently founded a songwriting workshop in Nelson, New Hampshire. With the Monadnock Folklore Society, Sheridan began "The Song Sessions" workshop in 2023, which is a weekend workshop series in which Sheridan and other musicians lead sessions on songwriting, voice and guitar. It's during these workshops and gathering, that people tend to find a supportive community that "brings people together from all walks of life: schoolteachers, retired military and vets, nurses, heart surgeons, computer programmers and park rangers," Sheridan said. "What they all find at camp is what they have in common: a love of playing and learning music." She added: "Folk music gave me community. Most of my longtime friends are people I met through the acoustic music community." Even during the pandemic, Sheridan and her husband and bandmate Charlie Koch worked to build community with their YouTube and Facebook channel, "Tuesdays with Cosy and Charlie." "On a Tuesday morning at 10:30 I turned on Facebook and pushed the 'go live' button and started singing some songs," she said. "During those first few months of the pandemic, there were a lot of people who were totally isolated: home alone for weeks and months. I felt that this was a way we could help; we could offer a place of community." Of note: The musical duo is now in their sixth year of streaming jam sessions with their fans.