THE BEAT
Les Sampou: No More Singing the Blues
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 6, 1997) -- Look past the blues-tinged vocals and the jeans-clad, midriff-baring, tough-girl persona as captured in Les Sampou's album photos to the songs themselves, and you'll find the beating heart of a vulnerable, roots-rocking singer-songwriter.
"I'm getting tired of the blues thing," said Sampou in a recent phone interview from her home in Hingham. "I'm not a blues singer. That's a way for the media to categorize me. `She's white, she's northern, and she sings the blues."
These days, Sampou isn't singing the blues as much as she used to, literally or figuratively. That's partly because she has recently released her second CD, "Fall From Grace," on Rounder Record's prestigious Flying Fish label.
It's also because her album is getting rave reviews. A recent, three-star review in the Boston Phoenix commented on Sampou's "sexy, muscular vocals and her confident blues picking," and said of the new CD, "Far from a `fall from grace,' Sampou's latest is more like a great leap forward." (Full disclosure: I wrote that for the Phoenix, but it bears repeating here.)
But mostly, Sampou has stopped singing the blues because she has come of age as a contemporary singer-songwriter, with a full repertoire of her own rootsy, carefully-drawn compositions that are both tough and tender in their portrayal of human relationships.
"Home" is a recurring theme on "Fall From Grace," whether it's the nostalgic return to childhood in the countryish "Home Again" or the bittersweet inertia of trailer-park life in the ironically-titled, swampy blues-rocker "Holy Land."
Sampou's strong sense of place was honed by her many travels. By the time she was 19, she had travelled throughout the U.S. and Europe, mostly on her own. "Travelling was always part of our upbringing," said Sampou, who performs at Milltown Studios in North Adams this Sunday, Feb. 9, at 6, as part of DCN Entertainment's "Music on Main Street" series. Windsor songwriter Ed Kohn -- the Berkshires' answer to Tom Paxton -- warms up the crowd for Sampou.
"I grew up in a small, country town, which was suffocating because I had such huge dreams. I wanted to see the world," said Sampou, for whom travel was an eye-opener. "It just gave me such insights into what reality was. Growing up a sheltered American, that's what you think reality is. I learned more in my year speaking Italian and travelling through Europe than all my years in school put together."
Her experiences travelling as a solo woman undoubtedly prepared her well for the rigors of making it in the music business. "I have gotten in a few fistfights, but I'm getting too old to be tough," said Sampou. "I guess I used to be. The people I hung out with, the kind of cars I drove, travelling alone for so many years and not being afraid of it, basically having that kind of bravado about me that let me think I could do anything, I guess that's a type of toughness. I've gotten much more in touch with the vulnerable side of myself in the last few years, and the songs that I'm writing now are full of that. It's a whole different style right now that I've tapped into.
"I feel like I'm still growing, because I started music so late and blues was the first thing I did. Blues is really easy for me to sing for some reason. It always just fit my personality. But blues is not the direction I want to go in. When you hear my next album, if it comes out the way I want it to, some of the songs I'm writing now are more rock than anything."
Spotlight -- Charmaine Neville
You've heard of the legendary Neville Brothers. Now it's time for a Neville sistah to make her move. Actually, Charmaine Neville is a Neville daughter, but all you really need to know is she leads a top- flight New Orleans ensemble featuring pianist Amasa Miller and saxophonist Reggie Houston, serving up a funky gumbo of original R&B, jazz standards and pop tunes. But on next Wednesday, Feb. 12, you can expect lots of New Orleans-style party music, when the Charmaine Neville Band celebrates Fat Tuesday -- that's Mardi Gras to you -- right here in the Berkshires at the Old Egremont Club in South Egremont. Call 528-9712 for more information. Et toi!
Spotlight -- Chris Smither
On the title track of his great new album, "Small Revelations" (Hightone Records), singer-songwriter Chris Smither sings, "Passion is feeling in motion." It's a simple truth, but it just might harbor the secret of what makes Smither's music -- rich in feeling and motion -- so vital. You can hear traces of Smither's New Orleans upbringing in the jazzy way he swings phrases across the beat and in rootsy touches like the tuba-driven rag, "Hook Line and Sinker." You can hear his lifelong love affair with the blues on the Robert Johnson and Brownie McGhee tunes he covers. And on the meditative, prayer-like "Cave Man," you can hear the voice of a survivor who in the late '80s came back from a decade lost to the bottle to disprove F. Scott Fitzgerald's dictum that there are no second acts in America. Since then he has been taking his career to new heights, far surpassing his previous claim to fame as the writer of two Bonnie Raitt hits in the 1970s. On that same title track on the new album Smither warns, "Beware of cheap imitations." It's good advice. But make no mistake. Chris Smither is the real thing. And you can see him perform on Friday, Feb. 7, at 7, when he celebrates the release of his new CD at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton.[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Feb. 6, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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