Customer Reviews

Fall from Grace

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Les Sampou is a wisp of a woman with a powerhouse voice. She also plays a fine, intricate guitar, and tells a story that will pick you up bodily and carry you miles away. In FALL FROM GRACE, her second release, each cut shows her finest gifts in the very best lights.

The liner notes begin, "Les Sampou is tough. She's also tender, and smart. And she plays some very tasty guitar. And damn, can she write a song." Elijah Wald's essay suggests the same spare phrasing that hallmark the compositions on this album. From the opening Notes of "Holy Land," a lazy ballad of pretentious white trash, she hooks the listener and starts reeling. The broader strumming accompanying "Alibis" -- "My dad told me that you can't steal second with your foot on first / And I reckon he's right"-- opens out into full instrumentation as the passion builds. "Things I Should Have Said" takes the experience we've all had, of re-thinking a situation we could have handled better, and paints it in the context of a singer's angry musings on a cross-country drive. The soft yearning of a homebound traveller is delicately embellished in "Home Again." And again, you're right there with her, almost unconscious of the deft production so ably supporting the fine story-telling.

Sampou is adept at vivid imagery, despite a bare minimum of flowery phrases. Whether it's the childhood exhilaration of "Ride the Line," or the bitter discovery of her best friend's homosexuality and her own betrayal ("Flesh and Blood"), she makes the experiences our own. The aching exhaustion of "I Already Know" paints a woman persuading her heart to let go when her mind knows she should. "String of Pearls" uses the metaphor of an heirloom necklace for the values we don't always appreciate until we've proven their worth to ourselves. "Two Strong Arms" is a gritty anthem of a woman giving herself a stern talking-to-- this one's a personal favorite. (An excerpt doesn't do it justice, folks: you just have to hear it.)

I doubt we live in a world where a petite white woman will stand beside B.B. King as a blues icon-- and even Les herself might cringe at the pretension of that image. But for my money, this lady has the stuff of which legends are made. I challenge you to listen to the first cut. I doubt you'll be able to leave without wanting to take her home!

The substance of this review was originally used in the review of Les Sampou's "Borrowed And Blue" album. I have revised that review and most of the points made apply to the other three CD's reviewed in this space as well.

The name Les Sampou most recently came up in this space, in passing, as part of a review of blues/folk stylist/ songwriter Rory Block's work. I made the point there that Rory (and Les, Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and precious few others) were performing a great service by keeping the female blue singer tradition alive (and, for that matter, male-witness the songs covered by all four). And along the way doing the same for the more amorphous contemporary folk tradition with their own fair share of masterful songwriting efforts. Since I placed Les Sampou in such august company it was, thus, only a matter of time before I got around to giving her a few kudos of her own. The following paragraph from the Rory Block review can serve here for Les as well:

"But more than that, thanks for this great album of country blues classics some famous, some a little obscure and known only to serious aficionados but all well worth placing in the album with the quirky little Rory Block treatment that makes many of the songs her own. Oh, did I also mention her virtuoso strong guitar playing. Well, that too. I have gone on and on elsewhere in this space about the old time women blues singers, mostly black, like Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and Ida Cox. I have also spilled some ink on more modern, mainly white, women blues singers like Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and a local talent here in Boston, Les Sampou, and their admirable (and necessary) efforts to carry on this proud tradition. Rory belongs right up there with these women."

As For "Fall From Grace" here is the `skinny':

I will make the same point I made in reviewing the "Les Sampou" album because that same spirit pervades this effort. There are a lot of way to be "in" the contemporary folk scene. One way is to write some topical songs of love, longings for love, maybe, a little politics thrown in and maybe some snappy thing about the vacuity of modern life. Yes, that is the easy stuff and Les can, if the occasion calls for it, summon up some very powerful lyrics to make those points. Witness "Holy Land " and "Home Again". But, something more is going on here. This is a woman who has been through the emotional wringer, and survived. Listen to the heartrending "Weather Vane" and the slightly, just slightly, more hopeful "Ride The Line". An extraordinary track is "Flesh And Blood" about the all too real traumas of youthful sexual identity. You can't fake that stuff.

I really can't add much to the excellent reviews posted above. This is truly an exceptional disc.

Great lyrics and the lady can play that guitar...when she tells a story, you can feel it...and if you get the chance to see her in concert like I did, check her out...I repeat...the lady CAN PLAY!!!