Sam Amidon, Sam Gendel
Recommended
Folk musician Sam Amidon has too many talents to list: song collector, songwriter, interpreter, storyteller, multi-instrumentalist, surrealist comic, comics artist, and more. But perhaps Amidon’s greatest gift is his ability to synthesize all of these things into a sui generis mode of expression. He unearths ballads as old as dirt, then gives them modernist musical trappings; he contrasts reassuring, NPR-friendly melodies with throat-shredding sustained yawps; he carries the torch for the preservation of folk traditions while making his music as messy as possible with jazz, classical, avant-garde, and electronic elements. In other words, he’s one of a kind, and probably a genius, and a night spent with him is one that won’t be wasted.
by Ned Lannamann
by Ned Lannamann