But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted

Head Over Heels

Bright Sunny South

My Old Friend

1842

Lily-O

Devotion

Dear Jean: Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie

The Cuckoo

Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell

Lucky Cloud

Fatal Flower Garden EP (A Tribute To Harry Smith)

Train on the Island

Fatal Flower Garden

Dry Bones

Sam Amidon

Reuben

Time Has Made A Change

Sundown (feat. Beth Orton)

Maggie

Spanish Merchant's Daughter

Pretty Polly

Cuckoo

Hallelujah

Light Rain Blues

All Is Well

Sugar Baby

Saro

Wedding Dress

Little Satchel

Wild Bill Jones

O Death

Fall On My Knees

Little Johnny Brow

Prodigal Son

Sam Amidon thought he had a pretty good idea what direction his new album Lily-O was going to go. Then he started recording it. Due Sept. 30 on Nonesuch Records, what turned out to be a collection of distinctive, enveloping songs rooted in folk music didn’t begin that way at all. 

In fact, the Vermont-born singer, guitarist, fiddler and banjo player had initially envisioned an album based more on the improvisational material he and jazz guitar great Bill Frisell developed together a couple of years ago while touring New England as a duo.

“I thought it was going to be a much more instrumental, weird album of fiddle stuff and snatches of melodies and a little bit of singing, but really strange,” Amidon says. “I didn’t set out for this album to be as much of a songs record as it ended up being.” 

There are 10 songs on Lily-O, to be exact, and they include bright banjo and clickety-clack percussion on opener “Walkin’ Boss,” the mournful interplay of fiddle and guitars on “Blue Mountain” and glimmers of Frisell’s electric guitar framing Amidon’s plainspoken vocals on “Maid Lamenting.” 

Sam Amidon

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