Sam Amidon is a Vermont native formerly active in the New England folk scene, now based in London. Bright Sunny South is his fourth full-length release but his first on a major label. In addition to his solo work, he has collaborated with Beth Orton, Nico Muhly, toured as part of Thomas Bartlett’s group Doveman and the Brooklyn band Stars Like Fleas, and played a series of live shows with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell.
Amidon is becoming known for reworking traditional tunes and songs into new forms, and that collaboration with Frisell is a good clue to what Bright Sunny South sounds like. Remember Pentangle and its blend of folk and jazz? Well, this is nothing like that, although Amidon seems to have been seriously influenced by the music and musicians of the ’60s folk movement, particularly the English scene, in that he is taking the traditional songs of his native land and incorporating contemporary sounds, forms and ideas into their arrangements, without damaging their original simplicity and power. And he is also not averse to giving the same treatment to contemporary popular songs, in much the same way that Pentangle covered “Sally Go Round The Roses” or Fairport Convention covered Dylan and Hendrix.
Amidon’s singing voice most often reminds me of early Bert Jansch (which strengthens the Pentangle connection in my mind), but he’s capable of pushing it to a raspy old-time holler as he does in his rendition of “As I Roved Out.” It’s of course an old Irish song, but Amidon’s version, in which he plays a claw-hammer banjo, is raw and Appalachian in nature, although with the addition of a kick drum and snare it takes on a bit of the nature of an old fife-and-drum tune and maybe even a bit of a hip-hop flavor. Check out his solo version in this promotional video of a live performance:
The modern elements are more blatant in tracks like the title song, an old Dock Boggs song of a Civil War soldier to which Amidon has added to his acoustic guitar a high-pitched organ drone; or “I Wish I Wish,” an old British and American ballad which has a jazzy piano and drum arrangement behind lightly plucked acoustic guitar, and a haunting trumpet solo. I previously knew this song as “I Wish My Baby Was Born” from when the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo dug through the old songbooks. On “Streets of Derry,” an old song in the “gallows pole” tradition that Shirley Collins recorded in 1967, there’s a lovely jazz fiddle line that replaces what was originally probably played by uillean pipes. The song “Pharaoh,” which sounds like it started as a field holler, is reminiscent of some of the more esoteric folk experiments on Elektra in the ’60s, with Asian-style guitar flourishes and an ethereal flute line. My favorites are a couple of old hymns that have been radically reworked. “He’s Taken My Feet” has been refigured in a dark minor key, and after the first verse or two begin to pick up some dischordant notes from electric guitar until by the end it has risen to a dramatic wall of distortion and highly charged drumming. The final track, an old shape-note hymn called “Weeping Mary,” has been similarly rearranged, this time with a lovely jazzy line of reed instruments plus electric guitar and percussion, which slowly rise to replace the melody as Amidon repeats snatches of the final chorus.
The least-interesting songs to me are those modern covers: Tim McGraw’s “My Old Friend,” which does serve as a needed up-tempo song; and the Mariah Carey song “Shake It Off” which Sam has slowed down and accompanied with just piano, finding the loneliness in this frothy pop ballad.
Props to Amidon’s main collaborators Thomas Bartlett, Shahzad Ismaily, Chris Vatalaro and jazz trumpeter (and American expat) Kenny Wheeler who, like the others, plays multiple instruments.
Given my affinity for ’60s folk-rock, for thoughtful Americana and for understated jazz, it’s no wonder Bright Sunny South has become one of my favorite releases of 2013. It’s simply a top-notch recording in all respects: highly original but respectful of tradition, creative and personal without being pretentious or precious. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
(Nonesuch, 2013)
