(Editor’s Note — Sally Schaefer has emerged as one of the most recognizable and in-demand musicians on the Buffalo scene. Recently awarded a New York State Council on the Arts grant for the making of an ambitious album set for release later this year, Sally was kind enough recently to take time from her busy schedule to speak with 1120 Press about all that’s happening. She will also be appearing Thursday night with Tyler Bagwell at Mohawk Place, part of a multi-band bill that will mark the second-last show at the soon-to-be-closed legendary venue. Music at 7 pm. We thank Sally for her time. Please read our story below. Photos by Matt Smith/1120 Press)

If it seems like musician Sally Schaefer is everywhere, well, that’s because she is. And that’s a testament to her immense talent and versatility.
Consider the list of bands and artists with whom Schaefer has collaborated; it reads like a Who’s Who of the Buffalo music scene: McCarthyizm, Stress Dolls, Tyler Bagwell, Ian McCuen, Bill Ward, Celtic Spirit Pipe Band, Creek Bend, Buffalo Bluegrass Allstars, Over & Out and Capt. Tom and the Hooligans.
And that’s just to name a few.
Schaefer — who also toured with 10,000 Maniacs in 2023 as a multi-instrumentalist — has played piano since she was five years old. However, she is best known for her work on violin, which is the centerpiece of her forthcoming album tentatively titled “NYS Fiddle & Song,” sponsored through a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
As a recording artist, sought-after studio musician, and performer, her accomplishments are many and known widely on the scene. But in a recent interview, it didn’t take long for Schaefer’s personality to shine through when she quickly broke the ice by offering that her “dream role” is to star as the fiddler in ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’
“I am aware that probably anybody playing that role is not usually an actual fiddle player,” she said. “They’re someone mimicking a fiddle that’s happening in the pit. But I would love to get hired for that show and actually be on stage playing the fiddle. That’s my dream role.”
Schaefer said she never thought she’d be a performer. She explained she was spending a lot of time at Sportsmen’s Tavern, the first music venue to open after the pandemic shutdown, and a temporary lack of musicians prompted many bands to reach out to her to sit in with them.
The rest is history and she’s been busy playing and recording ever since, she said.
But while Schaefer has spent years cementing her reputation in Buffalo’s music community, it might surprise some to know she is also a dedicated researcher of folk music and holds an MA in ethnomusicology after doing her thesis in Wales. Possessing an analytical mind that feels at home in a library, she’s built a line of work around ferreting out the origins of music.
“A lot of folk music is ‘the tradition,’ which Tyler Bagwell and I talk about all the time when we’re putting our sets together. For us, it’s easy to play a fairly long set, because you don’t even necessarily need tons of songs. Part of the folk music tradition is telling people the background of the song,” she said. “You automatically get a lecture.”
Schaefer said she wasn’t headed toward her present musical career upon graduating high school in Eden. Instead, she hit the books at SUNY Geneseo for biology.
Unfortunately — or luckily for music fans — the workload of physics and calculus

daunted her and so she joined a class called “Folk Music in America.”
Schaefer ultimately graduated with a degree in music and thought initially she’d end up in Plattsburgh for a public library role. But in an unfortunate series of events, she ended up quitting her job at Barnes & Noble and missed the deadline to accept the position in Plattsburgh. After three months of being unemployed, she got a job through AmeriCorps teaching music in Oregon. While teaching students from kindergarten to fifth grade out west, Schaefer said she set her sights on a trans-Atlantic trip to Wales for graduate school. The study of music had caught her interest once again.
“The reason I decided to go there was because I wanted to be immersed,” she said. “I wanted to study Welsh traditional music.”
When Schaefer came back to the States, she started attending shows in the Buffalo area.
“I didn’t have friends in the music scene, people my age who were into music. But eventually, (there was) someone I knew from Geneseo,” she said. “I mentioned wanting to know more about the music scene because I wanted to be involved in it. He said, ‘I have friends who are in a punk band, and they run a house venue'" where a show was scheduled the next week.
“I went and then suddenly I was in the underground punk scene and that led to every other scene I was in after that,” Schaefer said.
Besides performing, Schaefer said she is most happy categorizing herself as a “modern documenter.”

“Tyler is someone who has an interest in and is very good at looking back at old records. Even the other day, he was looking back at old newspaper articles about Mohawk Place to get the origin of what that building was. Who owned it. What it was before it was a punk rock venue.
“But my focus often, what is fun for me, is looking at what is happening now and documenting what people are doing currently,” she said. “Artists who are emerging right now.”
As part of that focus, Schaefer said she’s excited to be working on her upcoming album — which is scheduled now for release in November — though she noted she has a lot of work ahead of her.
“It’s going to be all fiddle tunes and folk songs that are relevant to New York state. Whether they’re written by people in New York or thematically about New York state or collected in New York state,” she said. “I’m taking a step back from performing live so I can do research.”
Schaefer added that she’s planning the project as a solo album on which she will also play acoustic guitar, piano and, possibly, harp.
“I'm probably going to home record most of it unless I really need a studio… I might need a real piano.”
(Details on Thursday night’s show at Mohawk can be found below.)

Comments