Sam Baker

05.19.2006 -- Review by: Shaun Harvey

I first discovered Sam Baker through the work of Darryl Lee Rush, who covered Sam Baker’s song "Truale" on his 2005 release Llano Avenue. The song stood out immediately, partly due to Rush’s perfect delivery but also in part to Sam Baker’s brand of storytelling. When Baker’s album first came to my attention earlier this year, I immediately recognized Truale’s title (it’s the second song of off "Mercy" ) but I was in no way prepared for the music, words, and the voice contained within the album’s eleven tracks.

First things first: the Voice. It’s plain, but in a John Prine kinda way. It’s witty and sharp like Todd Snider and the delivery is pure Kris Kristofferson. But the stories and the knowledge behind them belongs to Sam Baker and when he sings them you believe him. And as for the Words: there’s a sadness, a truth, and rough-hewn beauty to all of these songs. In the album’s opener entitled "Waves", we find a man feeling the pain of losing his love of fifty years . . . "He walks down to the ocean / Bends to touch the water, kneels to pray / He writes her name in the sand / Waves wash it away." Baker is joined on the cut by guest vocalist Jessi Colter, (who appears as Sam writes in the liner notes, courtesy of the goodness of her heart), and their two voices delicately wrap around the words and the reality behind them. Throughout the album, Sam doesn’t really sing these songs as much as he just talks us through them with his imperfect melody, but it works.

In addition to Jessi Colter’s guest vocals, Baker is also joined by Kevin Welch and Randy Wayne Sitzler on the aforementioned "Truale" and by singer/songwriter Joy Lynn White on another of the album’s highlights, a song about redemption and second chances entitled "Iron." "Iron" is about the blue collar family man and the real and sometimes imagined stresses of making all those ends meet. Sam Baker is the iron worker who "drinks too much when stuff gets heavy / Him can’t think straight, his mind gets hazy " and Joy Lynn White is the stay-at-home wife who looks beyond the obvious demons and the fact that maybe her friends think she’s crazy for sticking around and are telling her it’s time to move on. She sings " . . . you don’t see he can be so sweet / He only gets mean when he gets in his drink / He’s good to the kids it’s just sometimes he gets down." So many times this tale ends the way we expect it to because it’s happened so many times before, but Sam Baker brings a light to the imagined dark ending, and the story becomes one of hard work, dedication, and starting over with fresh eyes. These songs are our friends and neighbors, our sons and daughters, our angels and our sins, but maybe most importantly our humanity as Baker reminds us in the album’s last tale "Angels": "Everyone is a saint / Everyone is redeemed / Everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dream."

And if this album simply contained the voices we’ve mentioned and the words we’ve highlighted it would be a winner, but we haven’t even touched upon the broken highways these characters ride upon, the cold waters their fingers touch, or the bullets which fly from the skinny boy’s guns at war. Here’s where the music comes in. Most of the guests on this album are vocalists, but the music for the most part is provided by a core of six artists including Baker on guitar and harmonica. Joining Sam is Mike Daly (Whiskeytown) on pedal steel and dobro, Ron DeLa Vega on bass and cello, Mickey Grim on drums, the stunning Tim Lorsch on violin and mandolin, and the whole group is led in part by producer Walt Wilkins on guitar. Wilkins’ production shimmers throughout this album, there’s really no other way to put it . . . the music shimmers and quakes but never drowns out the message. The music lifts these tales and adds just enough wind to gently move the leaves without bending the tree. The touch of cello and steel on "Waves", the violin and guitar sweeping us through "Baseball", the jangle of dobro, bass, and drums on "Change", and the cello, violin, and steel guitar weaving throughout the album’s title track and closer, the instrumental piece "Mercy", which sounds like a hymn, a wedding march, and a funeral piece all wrapped into one. It’s truly a fitting end to an album filled with so much hope, love, and sadness.

Taken as a whole, Sam Baker’s latest effort (originally released in 2004, re-issued earlier this year) is one for fans of songs like those found on Mary Gauthier’s "Filth and Fire," sung in a voice for admirers of Kris Kristofferson, with pieces of poems reminiscent of John Prine’s "Sam Stone." The artist is Sam Baker, the album is entitled "Mercy," and the reasons to stop and listen are too numerous to list . . . you’ll just have to discover the rest for yourself.