View a video of Sean Wiggins performing at Cold Spring Tavern.
She’s performed across Santa Barbara County, from the wooded Santa Ynez Mountains to Santa Maria Valley, singing songs under the oaks at outdoor festivals or setting up in the corner of a winery tasting room.
Singer/songwriter Sean Wiggins may be based in Santa Clarita in LA County, but she’s been a regular performer on the Central Coast for years now.
It all began when she performed at the Cold Spring Tavern off the San Marcos pass about 10 years ago, Wiggins explained, and made friends with some of the audience there.
“I met a lot of people on motorcycles and they happened to live in the Santa Maria area, and it just grew and grew until I had a larger following up in that area than in my hometown,” she said. “People just seem very open. They enjoy going out and listening to live music and aren’t jaded like people who live right outside of Hollywood.”
With the summer season arriving to the Central Coast, Wiggins returns on May 27 for a Memorial Day concert at Zaca Mesa Winery.
Like many of her shows, the concert will be outdoors, on the winery’s patio. Wiggins is used to performing outdoors, she said, and said that Northern Santa Barbara County is a great region for taking music outside.
“It’s just beautiful and free, doesn’t cost anything,” she said. “I mostly do it in the summer, but really it’s been expanding. I’ve been doing outdoor gigs now almost year round.”
Wiggins brings a head full of classic rock and pop songs, from artists as varied as Janis Joplin to Bruno Mars. She also mixes her own originals in with the covers, she said, to the point that locals recognize and request her songs.
She won’t be alone either. Wiggins said she’s bringing along guitarist and singer Cary Park. She said he’s a skilled guitarist who can “play guitar faster than anyone I’ve ever heard.”
“But he sounds good, not just fast,” she said. “It’s jaw dropping.”
Wiggins always wields an acoustic guitar and sings with a clear voice, which has been likened to Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Raitt. But really, she sings with her own varied style, belting rock anthems by groups like AC/DC, or country classics by Johnny Cash.
She never performs with a set list, Wiggins said, and has at least 200 songs in her memory. She often reads the crowd and talks with them to gauge their tastes, tailoring her covers and originals to each audience.
“I’ve written a bunch of country tunes, some rock tunes, and I’ve also written a bunch of blues tunes,” she said. “If the crowd seems to be liking country, I will throw in some of my originals that are more country, or blues if they want blues—I just sort of mix it in with whatever the crowd seems to be liking.”
That’s what has made Wiggins a number of friends on the Central Coast, and listeners she keeps encountering again and again whenever she comes to visit and perform.
“I like people,” she said, “and that’s my job, to connect with people, and I enjoy it.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne shared a stage with Wiggins one year at Trailpalooza. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
Sean Wiggins and Paul Houston at Cold Spring Tavern.
VIA TABUDABELLY/YOUTUBE.COM
This article appears in May 25 – Jun 1, 2017.
