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Sam Amidon shares his new single and folklore-inspired video ‘I’m On My Journey Home’ and announces his forthcoming album ‘Salt River’, on which he continues his decades-long quest to recontextualise what it means to sing folk songs or make folk music.
On Sam Amidon’s last album, a self-titled release (2020), he set about reworking a series of traditional folk songs and was, by his own admission, the ‘fullest realization to date of his artistic vision’. Before this, his EP Fatal Flower Garden (2019) was inspired by the Anthology of American Folk Music – a visionary trip through the sprawling backcountry of early 20th Century America, first envisioned through the prism of bohemian Harry Smith. His albums have underpinned his decades-long quest to recontextualise what it means to sing folk songs or make folk music.
His new album, Salt River, due for release on 24 January 2025, and his first on River Lea Records, continues that quest in a collaboration with saxophonist and producer Sam Gendel.
Amidon’s chosen pathway for this new journey is unexpected, radical and maybe even enlightening. The album takes in the Appalachian Ballad Golden Willow Tree, an Irish fiddle tune by Junior Creehan, a radical reimagining of Lou Reed’s Big Sky, shape note singing, and even a rendition of Ornette Coleman’s Friends And Neighbours, an ode to community, inspired by Coleman’s time living at Artists House on Princes Street during the late ’60s/70s – an open-house to musicians – much like the Jazz Loft that was documented by American photographer W. Eugene Smith in New York’s flower district. Community clearly plays an important role in this album:
“This album is a campfire, but the campfire is around Sam Gendel’s synthesizer. Or maybe it’s a journey through the corridors of my memory, if my memory was transplanted into Sam and Phil’s dreams.”
The album was recorded by Amidon, Gendel and percussionist Philippe Melanson, who played together as a trio during sessions at Gendel’s home in Los Angeles.
Leading the way is “I’m On My Journey Home,” a track that truly typifies the album’s approach. It gives the New England folk song first noted in the 1700s an authentic yet contemporary new life.
Inspired by a “loose swing that I had not heard in other shape note singing recordings” that Amidon found on a rendition of the song by early 20th-century vocal group, The Denson Quartet, the new recording sets the tone for the whole album.
“‘I’m On My Journey Home’ was the first one we tried as a trio, and it woke us up,” declares Amidon. “It set us down the path of making Salt River.”
Sam spoke about the influence of Shape Note singing in our interview with him in 2019.
“…the melodies and sounds of shape note music are one of the most fundamental elements of my childhood and teenage years (in my case primarily through the Village Harmony and Northern Harmony camps and choirs). It is just deep, deep music and a profound experience to be part of, for people of any level of musical ability.
“It has always moved around and shifted in meaning and form – starting as a kind of subversive alternative to dull church music, sung by young people in Puritan New England in the late 1700s; migrating south to Alabama and Georgia and becoming part of the intense Baptist religious tradition there starting in the mid-1800s; being rediscovered by folkies in New England in the 1970s, and now spreading to Europe and beyond… It’s a deep communal practice and anybody who has not gone to a singing should check it out!”
The accompanying video is quite stunning. It was directed by Allyn Quigley and incorporates folklore elements reminiscent of the Irish straw boy tradition.
Salt River can be pre-ordered now on vinyl and CD ahead of its release in January.
Salt River Tracklist
- Oldenfjord (originally by Grey Larsen)
- Three Five (originally traditional hymn Old Churchyard)
- Big Sky (originally by Lou Reed)
- Tavern (originally traditional American fiddle tune Salt River
- Golden Willow Tree (originally from Appalachian ballad tradition)
- I’m On My Journey Home (originally from shape note singing tradition)
- Ask The Elephant (originally by Yoko Ono)
- Cusseta (originally from shape note singing tradition)
- Friends And Neighbours (originally by Ornette Coleman)
- Never (incorporates the fiddle tune “Her Long Hair Flowing Down Her Back” composed by Junior Crehan)
Salt River will be Amidon’s first record for Rough Trade Records’ sister label River Lea, who have previously released albums with the likes of John Francis Flynn, Lisa O’Neil, Ye Vagabonds and more, confirming its place at folk music’s ever-evolving vanguard.
Forthcoming Tour Dates:
Wed 29th January – London – Moth Club
Thu 30th January – London – St Giles , The Crypt
Thu 6th February – New York – Public Records
Sat 8th February – Brattleboro – Stone Church
Tickets via: https://www.samamidon.com/
Pre-Order Salt River: https://samamidon.rtrecs.co/saltriver
