Americana-Soul Slinger Sam Lewis Calls Upon Nashville Royalty for New LP, out 4/21 – Southgate House Revival On 3/15

3/15/15

Southgate House Revival, 111 E 6th St, Newport, KY

8pm doors, 9pm show, $15, $18 adv, Buy Tickets

As a Nashville transplant with no real place to call a hometown, Sam Lewis’ goal upon moving to Music City was to make friends.  “I felt its pull, its draw,” he recalls. “Some of my favorite people live in Nashville and I thought maybe I could rub up against a few of ‘em.”  After a few years, he did more than just make a few connections, he got some of Nashville’s top musicians to perform on his album while recording it in one of America’s most legendary studios.  As the follow-up to his self-titled debut, Lewis’ sophomore effort Waiting On You will be released on April 21via Brash Music.  Guitar World’s Acoustic Nation holds the first look under the hood of Sam’s new album with the exclusive premiere of the first single “3/4 Time.”

LISTEN:  Sam Lewis – “3/4 Time” on Guitar World’s Acoustic Nation:

Waiting On You features several generations of Nashville royalty such as Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart, Lana Del Rey, Ray Lamontagne), guitarist Darrell Scott(Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Robert Plant), harmonica legend Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young), guitarist Will Kimbrough (Rodney Crowell), pianist Gabe Dixon (Paul McCartney, Supertramp), and Nashville’s favorite vocal group The McCrary Sisters (Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin).

Last summer, Lewis united his all-star team at Southern Ground Studios, the site of classic recordings by Kris Kristofferson, Tony Joe White, and Roy Orbison, with roots music maestro and producer Oliver Wood (Tedeschi Trucks Band, Shemekia Copeland, Kathy Mattea) of acclaimed group The Wood Brothers.  As on his previous recordings, the band played together live on the studio floor, tracking a dozen songs in just two and a half days.  The cast of iconic players ably adds texture and filigree while never overburdening Lewis’ elemental ballads and finely etched character studies.

With his compelling songs, stirring melodies, and preternaturally soulful voice, Sam Lewis has quickly established himself as one of Nashville’s most talented new tunesmiths.  Waiting On You reverberates with earnest emotion and restless energy, rich with the intimate lyricism of folk, country’s raw integrity, and a lived-in muscularity born of Lewis’ captivating vocal timbre.  This 12-track gem reveals Sam Lewis to be an exceptionally gifted troubadour, forthright, genuine, and completely his own.

Watch his performance of “Reinventing The Blues” on Music City Roots HERE, where host Craig Havighurst called his songs “Americana with a groovy twist.”

“I live what I write,” says Sam Lewis. “But the older I get, the more I find that some songs are actually ahead of my physical evolution. It’s weird. I live all of my songs but some of ‘em, I think I haven’t yet lived through.”