Sara Routh teaches speech and drama to children by day, and by night sings at the Cotton Club and other nightspots. She is channeling Shanghai's roller-coaster energy into her first album.

From serving burgers to truckers in the desert of Western Australia to coffee to Hollywood stars in Los Angeles, singer Sara Routh taps a rich vein of life experience when writing her songs.

The American singer/songwriter says her nine months in Shanghai have fueled a burst of creativity that been channeled into material for her first album. She also has a growing fan base drawn to her high-energy live performances.

Routh is a regular Tuesday night performer at Shanghai jazz and blues institution, the Cotton Club, and also performs on open-mic nights at LOgO and Anar Lounge Bar.

Originally from the small United States Midwestern town of Norwalk in the state of Iowa, Routh began singing in her family's church choir when she was three.

Music has always been central to the Routh family - her parents met while performing in a jazz band. Her father was the drummer and her mother the singer.

"I have always been around music. I would go to church choir practicing with my parents and always wanted to sing," she says. "Music has always been there and I have always been on stage."

Routh went on to study music education, specializing in opera.

But after seeing the cutthroat world of professional opera, she decided not to pursue a career on that kind of stage.

After a couple of years teaching special education in Des Moines, Iowa, Routh and a friend decided to change their lives on a flip of a coin.

"We flipped to see if we would live in San Francisco or New York. I was 22 and the coin flipped to New York," she says.

Arriving in New York just 10 days after the September 11, 2001, attack, Routh tried to break into the world of musical theater on Broadway.

Her time in New York included work as an extra on the iconic comedy TV show "Saturday Night Live."