CONCERT REVIEW
Les Sampou don't let the blues get her down
by Seth Rogovoy(NORTH ADAMS, Mass., Feb. 10, 1997) -- Like Bonnie Raitt before her, singer-songwriter Les Sampou has built a repertoire of carefully- drawn, personal compositions upon a base of traditional folk- and country-blues. And like Raitt, Sampou boasts a big, dynamic voice, some mean guitar licks -- including fleetly delicate fingerpicking and gutsy bottleneck slide -- and an abundance of stage presence.
In fact, after seeing her show at Milltown Studios on Sunday evening, about the only thing Sampou lacks that Bonnie Raitt has is producer Don Was, who took a floundering, solo Raitt a few years back and transformed her into the perennial Grammy Award-winner all America has come to know and love.
There but for the grace of Don Was goes Les Sampou.
In fact, Raitt lacks a few things that Sampou boasts. Unlike Raitt, who relies extensively on the work of other songwriters, Sampou is for the most part a self-contained unit, self-sufficiently mining her own life and the lives of those around her for her intimately observed portraits of everyday life.
And when Sampou did draw from the songbooks of other writers in her Music on Main Street performance, it was to acknowledge the influence of such blues pioneers as Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell and Bessie Smith.
Sampou played two sets of unerring musical and lyrical integrity on Sunday night. And if her material was not always up to the standards of her best tunes, like "Holy Land" or "Sweet Perfume," it was never lacking in honesty and always generous in its passion.
Sampou was an engaging performer, introducing each song with just enough information to give first-time listeners something to hang on to. Switching between two acoustic guitars throughout her two sets, she varied the style and pace among deep, bluesy numbers, upbeat, pop-influenced tunes and warm ballads.
A few of Sampou's songs portrayed family scenes, including the mother-daughter struggle for understanding encapsulated in "String of Pearls," the father-daughter struggle for acceptance outlined in "Alibis," and the eponymously-titled tribute to her Grandma Lou.
Sampou also offered songs of cinematic sweep that conjured up a strong sense of character and place, as in "Holy Land," a kind of ode to trailer-park life, "Home Again," a nostalgic reverie of a childhood home, and "Ride the Line," which captured that singular time in a young girl's life when she straddles the line between child and woman.
But it was Sampou's highly idiosyncratic versions of original blues tunes like "Sweet Perfume" and "Weather Vane" that cut the sharpest. Although the text of "Bull's-eye," off her excellent new album, "Fall From Grace" (Flying Fish/Rounder), ostensibly rode the straight and narrow, its devilish double-entendres and Sampou's deliriously suggestive blues notes -- both vocal and instrumental - - cried out for one of those parental warning labels reading "Danger: Raw Sex."
It was all in good fun, of course, and Sampou ended her show on the upbeat note provided by her anthem of self-esteem, "Two Strong Arms." After taking her listeners on an emotional roller-coaster, it came as welcome reassurance to know that in the end this woman won't let the blues get her down.
Windsor singer-songwriter Ed Kohn warmed up the crowd with a selection of his wonderfully crafted compositions, both topically satirical and traditionally-flavored.
[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Feb. 11, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
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