SAM AMIDON’S NONESUCH RECORDS DEBUT BRIGHT SUNNY SOUTH OUT NOW
WORLD TOUR INCLUDES STOPS IN
LOS ANGELES AND PHILADELPHIA
“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 Records is releasing Sam Amidon’s label debut Bright Sunny South, out now. The video for the album track “As I Roved Out” can be seen on NPR’s website at: n.pr/17vQgms. 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 embark on a world tour that includes stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia before heading to Asia and Europe; please see next page for a complete list of dates.
Recent critical praise for Bright Sunny South…
Wall Street Journal
“At once archaically rootsy and savvily refined…the album includes airy adornment from trumpet and flute, and an overall glossier sound than in the past, but it remains rooted in the voice of a 31-year-old who sounds decades, if not centuries, older.”
Pitchfork
“A quiet, austere album that emphasizes Amidon’s banjo playing and singing… he not only has an impressively deep knowledge of traditional song forms, but takes liberties with the country's past in order to document his own personal present.”
Spin
“… beautifully bucolic… bathing Americana instrumentation in light, loose atmosphere.”
Paste
“Bright Sunny South features the most accomplished musicianship of Amidon’s career… [he] relocates his earliest influences and approaches those crossroads with all the maturity and mastery he’s gained as a working artist.”
eMusic
“For Amidon, this music isn’t something in a museum, but a continuous texture leading from the past to contemporary life.”
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 South follows 2010’s critically acclaimed I See the Sign, which earned Amidon praise from SPIN for 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.
SAM AMIDON TOUR DATES
* with Leo Abrahams Chris Vatalaro duo
† with Dan Michaelson
‡ with Alessi's Ark
May 21 Het Depot Leuven, Belgium
May 22 Huis 23 Brussels, Belgium
May 23 Bush Hall London, UK*
May 24 Grain Barge Bristol, UK†
May 25 Holy Trinity Church Guilford, UK†
May 26 The Met Bury, UK
June 3 Sunset Tavern Seattle, WA‡
June 4 Holocene Portland Portland, OR ‡
June 6 The Chapel San Francisco, CA‡
June 7 Bootleg Theater Los Angeles, CA‡
June 16 Johnny Brenda’s Philadelphia, PA‡
June 18 Next Stage Putney, VT‡
June 19 TT’s the Bear’s Place Cambridge, MA‡
June 20 One Longfellow Square Portland, ME‡
June 22 Solid Sound Festival, MASS MoCA North Adams, MA
June 28 Veloso Seoul, Korea
June 30 Tonofon Festival Tokyo, Japan
July 2 Takutaku Kyoto, Japan
July 3 Haretara Sora ni Mame Maite Tokyo, Japan
July 6 Inspire Festival Liempde, Netherlands
August 4 OFF Festival Katowice, Poland
August 9 Haldern Pop Festival Rees-Haldern, Germany
August 17 Green Man Festival Wales, UK
August 26 Feeërieën Festival Brussels, Belgium
SAM AMIDON’S NONESUCH RECORDS DEBUT
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