London-based Sam Amidon has a reputation for having collected, re-imagined, and performed American traditional tunes or other folk music in unconventional ways. The Vermont-born singer/fiddler/banjoist/guitarist is the scion of a legendary family of shape-note singers, has fallen in with New Music folks like Kronos Quartet, Nico Muhly and Icelandic label Bedroom Community, and relocated to London. His latest album, Sam Amidon, explores classic known tunes – shape note anthems, murder ballads, traditional folk songs, as well as a spacey-trippy Taj Mahal cover - and sets them in the “imagined space of an album fantasy world.” 

Sam Amidon and musician Chris Vatalaro (Antibalas drummer 2006-2010) play some favorite folk songs in inventive arrangements, remotely, from London. Sam explains the history of some of the shape note hymnody and explains how New England Puritans borrowed pirate song and drinking song melodies and attached spiritual words and religious texts instead; i.e. the pirate song, "Captain Kidd" as "What Wondrous Love Is This?" Then, they’d harmonize on top and bottom, without formal Western European harmonies for a drone minimalist feel. Additionally, Sam describes how one of his banjo tunings actually came from a Black Banjo Songsters compilation record and he and John go a wee bit further into some guitar tunings. 

Set List: “Cuckoo Bird” “Hallelujah” “Pretty Polly”