Country Music and Authenticity
Posted on | March 12, 2010 | No Comments
Since before he even moved to town a couple years ago, I had gigs with electric/acoustic bassist Sam Howard on my calendar, thanks to our mututal friend Russ Kleiner, who moved to Portland from NYC a few years ago and convinced Sam to make the jump a while later. Since then I’ve had the great pleasure of playing in the Sam Howard Band, with him, Russ, and originally Chris Mosley on guitar, and more recently (since Chris moved back to Texas) the great Scott Pemberton.
A few months ago I went to hear Sam play and sing with a different group of his over at Bethel Lutheran Church where he explained his “coming out” as a country music fan. I was very happy to hear about this, I often rail at great length about the “jazz education establishment” and how it encourages homogeneous listening tastes, and Sam’s unabashed love for simple country tunes really comes through strongly in his compositions.
A few months ago we went into the studio for a couple days and had a great time making a new record, “The Gettin’ Place,” which is being released tonight at Jimmy Mak’s with the great Blue Cranes, fresh off the road, opening up. I’ll post a link when the album is available online, meanwhile enjoy these videos from the studio! You can also read a nice interview with Sam over at Oregon Music News.
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