SAM AMIDON’S NONESUCH RECORDS DEBUTBRIGHT SUNNY SOUTHOUTONMAY 14
STREAM THE ALBUM ON PITCHFORK
RECORD RELEASE PERFORMANCE SLATED FOR MAY 16 AT LE POISSON ROUGE IN NEW YORK
“It’s official. Sam Amidon has burnt everything to the ground. It smells good, now that the rain has come. I can see the tips of blades rising.”—Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)
“Very little of Amidon’s material is ‘original’: a folk singer in the traditional sense, what he does is craft old songs in new ways…His originality impresses throughout…it is startling, moving stuff.”
—Guardian (UK)
Nonesuch Recordsreleases Sam Amidon’s label debut Bright Sunny South on May 14. You can listen to the album on Pitchfork HERE. Produced by Amidon with his childhood friend and longtime collaborator Thomas Bartlett(a.k.a. Doveman) and legendary English engineer Jerry Boys (Buena Vista Social Club, Vashti Bunyan, R.E.M.) and recorded in London, the record features a band made up of Bartlett and multi-instrumentalists Shahzad Ismaily and Chris Vatalaro. Jazz trumpeter Kenny Wheeler also makes a cameo. Amidon himself not only sings but also plays banjo, fiddle, acoustic guitar, and piano on the album. To celebrate the release, Amidon will perform on May 16 at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge with Bartlett, Ismaily, Vatalaro and special guests (to be announced).This is Amidon’s first full-scale band performance in New York City since the release of his previous album I See The Sign in 2010, although he has recently performed in New York as part of Doveman’s Burgundy Stain sessions, in duo with Bill Frisell, and in collaboration with Nico Muhly, Beth Orton, and others.
Amidon describes Bright Sunny South as a “a lonesome record” and a return to the more spare sound of his 2007 self-recorded debut, But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted: “There was an atmospheric quality to my last two records; those albums are like a garden of sounds,” says Amidon, “but this one is more of a journey, a winding path. The band comes rushing in and then they disappear. It comes from more of a darker, internal space.”
A longtime admirer of Boys’ work, Amidon was particularly enamored of his recordings with Martin Carthy in the 1970s, as well as the Ali Farka Touré/Toumani Diabaté duet albums on World Circuit/Nonesuch: “Those are so beautiful. I listened to all of that. I loved the sense of documentation, the unadorned quality. Everything sounded so clear.”
The Vermont-born and raised, London-based Amidon is known for his reworking of traditional melodies into a new form. In addition to country ballads and shape-note hymns, Bright Sunny South (complete track list on next page) features interpretations of traditional and contemporary songs, including Tim McGraw’s “My Old Friend” and Mariah Carey’s “Shake It Off.” The record also includes a version of “Weeping Mary,” a shape-note hymn that his parents, Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, had recorded with the Vermont-based Word of Mouth Chorus for Nonesuch Records on the 1977 disc Rivers of Delight: American Folk Hymns From the Sacred Harp Tradition.
Bright Sunny Southfollows 2010’s critically acclaimed I See the Sign, which earned Amidon praise from SPINfor his “quirky alchemy…contrasting pretty sounds with violent lyrical undercurrents” and Pitchfork, which said, “[Amidon’s] interpretations are so singular that it stops mattering how (or if) they existed before.”
Prior to I See the Sign, which was released on the Iceland-based label Bedroom Community, Amidon albums included But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted (Plug Research, 2007) and All Is Well(Bedroom Community, 2008). In addition to his solo albums, Amidon has collaborated on performances pieces with musical polymath Nico Muhly, toured as part of Thomas Bartlett’s group Doveman and the Brooklyn band Stars Like Fleas, collaborated with Beth Orton, and embarked on a series of live shows with the guitarist Bill Frisell.
Bright Sunny SouthTrack List
1. Bright Sunny South
2. I Wish I Wish
3. Short Life
4. My Old Friend
5. He's Taken My Feet
6. Pharaoh
7. As I Roved Out
8. Shake It Off
9. Groundhog
10. Streets of Derry
11. Weeping Mary