All is Well
1. Sugar Baby
2. Little Johnny Brown
3. Saro
4. Wild Bill Jones
5. Wedding Dress
6. Fall On My Knees
7. Little Satchel
8. O Death
9. Prodigal Son
10. All Is Well
Sam Amidon heads to Iceland to record a follow up to his 2007 album But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted with composer Nico Muhly and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson. With contributions from Wyvind Kang, Aaron Siegel, Ben Frost and Stefan Amidon.
Sam says:
This album is dedicated to Dock Boggs. From his recordings I learned many of the melodies and words found in this music. The banjo is from Africa and is well represented on the album "Black Banjo Songsters." This album is a gift from Valgeir, Nico, and Ben Frost. It is dedicated to them. Singing is a good way to pass the time when you're taking a walk or hitchhiking: "I'm a long time travelling here below, I'm a long time traveling away from home, I'm a long time traveling here below, to lay this body down." This album is dedicated to Marian, my friends Thomas and Gabriel, my brother Stefan, my parents, and the wonderful and gentle Dr. Weldon who took my wisdom teeth out with such care. I really appreciated that! Have you seen the show "Jackass"? "Wild Bill Jones" and other songs...
Reviews
"In an era of overheated Nick Drake comparisons, Amidon is eerily close to the real thing, singing in a fragile but certain tenor against the deep breath and soft sweep of Nico Muhly’s orchestrations." — Rolling Stone Magazine
"sky-scrapingly great ... All Is Well is viscerally stunning, comforting, upsetting, entrancing; as long as he can make art like this, Amidon can skip the formality of 'writing songs' forever" – Stylus Magazine
"A veritable classic, a standard for comparisons in this genre from now on. Not to be missed." – Touching Extremes
"Nothing less than a goose-bump-manufacturing sonic piéce de résistance" — CMJ New Music Monthly
"All Is Well a very forward-thinking album, despite its reliance on traditional tunes. With his team of musicians working so closely together, Amidon doesn't just update the old world to the new, but finds the roots of the new world in the old." — Pitchfork (February 8th 2008)