Biography
Sam Amidon (born Samuel Tear Amidon on June 3, 1981, in Brattleboro, Vermont) is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, banjo and fiddle[1]. He is best known for reworking traditional American folk songs in spare, strange and often orchestral settings.
His parents, Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, are folk artists who performed with the Bread and Puppet Theater in the 1970s[1]. He grew up singing in the family band and began playing fiddle at age three, and by thirteen he was working professionally in a contradance band with his childhood friend Thomas Bartlett[1]. He has said shape note singers were regular visitors to the family home[2].
In the early 2000s he lived in New York and played in indie rock groups including Doveman and Stars Like Fleas[1]. After the 2007 album But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted, made with Bartlett, he released All Is Well (2008) and I See the Sign (2010) on Bedroom Community, working with producer Valgeir Sigurdsson and arranger Nico Muhly[1]. Later records include Bright Sunny South and Lily-O on Nonesuch, the original-composition album The Following Mountain, and a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet[1]. He is married to the musician Beth Orton[1].
References
- Sam Amidon, Wikipedia — Biography, family background, discography and collaborators.
- You Better Mind: An Interview with Sam Amidon (PopMatters) — Amidon on shape note singing in his childhood home.