25 f 12 shots from the fRoots
Rocket Launcher a dozen leading questions to fire at Sam Amidon
If you were given the funds to organise a concert bill, who would the artists be?
Bonnie Raitt, JD Allen Trio, Arto Lindsay solo, Bruce Greene & Koreloy Mcwhirter, Meshell NDegeocello, Deerhoof, David Thomas Broughton, Sachiko M duo with Otomo Yoshihide, Irish music by The Yanks, and a lecture by Milford Graves!
Which totally obscure record do you most treasure and would like more people to know about?
Bruce Greene, Five Miles Of Ellum Wood. It is a collection of solo fiddle tunes from Bruce’s travels in eastern Kentucky, with accompanying liner notes detailing these trav- els written by Bruce. You can order it from his website. It is one of the deepest collections of American music of all time of any kind.
What was the best live gig you ever saw?
Tie between Arthur Doyle 20-minute- long solo singing/saxophone/whistle set at Tonic in NYC circa 2004, and Chris Whitley 20-minute-long solo set at CMJ circa 2002. Why do people ever play for longer than 20 minutes?!
And what was the worst?
Jimi Hendrix solo piano recital, Wig- more Hall 1983. This was not a good period of his career in general, and he was always a terrible pianist.
What was your own best ever gig?
It was back in 2010 in an old pub called the Puzzle Hall, in Sowerby Bridge, for the local patrons who numbered about fif- teen… just one of those deep, transcen- dent, crazy nights.
And what was your worst?
A 20-minute solo set at the Water Rats in London in 2009. I was scheduled to start at 7 pm, and there were zero people in the hall, and all you could hear was the thump- ing techno blasting out of the front room. Despite the fact that actually nobody was there, the sound man made me start. My previous show in London had been for a good house full of people so it was a dispir- iting moment.
But even this had its silver lining. I started by speaking directly to the floor and walls. I said, “this first song is about trees. You should know about trees, because you used to be them”. About ten minutes in, a small audience started to form and I told them that while I was happy they had come, the concert was really for the floor and the walls, who had been listening so carefully to my music since the beginning of my set.
What’s the professional achievement you’re most proud of?
The time (summer 2012) I left my house in London at 5:30 am, pushing my one year old son Arthur in his pram with my banjo hanging over the handle and carrying my guitar in my left hand, took bus and tube out to Heathrow, flew to Copenhagen, dropped Arthur with friends, played a set at Roskilde Festival, picked Arthur up and took a cab to the airport in time for him and me to catch an early morning flight to Win- nipeg Canada, and arrived to the Winnipeg Folk Festival in time to play with my wife Beth on her set there that evening!
What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever did in public?
Doing school assembly concerts with my parents when I was nine years old, singing children’s songs, most of our materi- al geared towards the five/six/seven year- olds and with my fellow nine year olds sneering in the back… from surviving that, I have (almost) no fear.
Which song or piece of music would you most like to have written yourself?
I think the Joni Mitchell song Amelia
from the Hejira album is a perfect work of art… also the layered entrances of her gui- tars on Refuge Of The Roads followed by Jaco Pastorius’ entry on the bass is a heaven- ly moment and I am in awe of whatever led to its creation.
I have never been a huge Dylan fan, but the other day in the car my wife Beth and I were listening to Blood On The Tracks, and his work on that record is such a mind blow- er. Poetry…
But the best song ever written is proba- bly Your Lone Journey by Rosa Lee Watson.
Who was the first musician or singer you were inspired to emulate?
Irish fiddle player Tommy Peoples. From the moment I first heard his music, lying in my tent at a folk music camp around age thirteen, with my headphones on and Disc- man playing, listening to his entrance on the tune Kid On The Mountain, completely changed my life. My entire goal from that point onwards was to match his sense of phrasing, rhythm, interstellar time and space travel through sound.
Who was the last-but-one musician or singer you lusted after?
Dock Boggs
If you had a rocket launcher, who or what would be the target, and why?
Concerts that are longer than 20 minutes!
Sam Amidon’s latest album The Following Mountain is out now on Nonesuch. He’s also featured on the Kronos Quartet album Folk Songs on the same label.
samamidon.com F
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