Sam Baker

Track	Album
Waves	Mercy
Iron	Mercy
Pretty World	Pretty World
Broken Fingers	Pretty World
Mennonite	Cotton
Angel Hair	Cotton
Migrants	Say Grace
Isn’t Love Great	Say Grace
The Feast Of Saint Valentine	Land Of Doubt
Peace Out	Land Of Doubt
Bonus Track
Thursday	Horses And Stars

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven

Patrick Kavanagh, ‘Canal Bank Walk’

Ironically, for an artist whose best work relies on subtlety and understatement, Sam Baker has one of the most dramatic backstories in recent musical history. In 1986, while on a trip to Peru, he was caught up in a terrorist attack by the guerilla group, the Shining Path, on a tourist train to Machu Picchu. The bomb they planted went off in a luggage rack above Baker’s head, killing seven people and injuring at least thirty-eight others. Among those who died were a German family, who he had been speaking to a few minutes before the explosion took place. Baker was also seriously injured in the blast and suffered injuries to his brain and hearing (he is deaf in one ear and has only 70% hearing in the other). This hearing loss has also affected Baker’s singing, which has an extremely raw quality which makes it something of an acquired taste. Baker also had a cut artery and severe damage to his hands. The severity of his injuries meant that he required a series of reconstructive surgeries, which took place in Lima and subsequently at a US army hospital in Houston, Texas. Throughout this time, he was surrounded by people whose injuries were sometimes worse than his own. The main lessons he learned at this time were in Baker’s own words, “empathy” and the “sense that all suffering is universal; that we suffer, you suffer, that we all do”. While he had written songs before this, he now saw these as essentially immature, especially when compared with the ones that started coming to him during his recovery from his injuries.

From that point on, Sam Baker’s work began to display both a clear-eyed clarity and an instinctive empathy towards the characters he described in his songs. There is also his beautiful economy with words. Indeed, he has that rare ability shared by only the very best songwriters (like Guy Clark, John Prine, Kevin Coyne or Ray Davies) to draw deft character sketches which, in the space of a three-to-four-minute song, can carry more weight than do many a short story or novel. His new songs also combined such deft characterisations with a wry sense of humour which keeps them from becoming sentimental or maudlin. He also developed a new mastery of the art of writing ‘story’ songs. In this regard, his work continues the great Texan tradition (he was born in Itasca, Texas in 1954) which began with artists of the calibre of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. Broadly speaking, his work fits within their mixture of folk, blues and country influences. At times, however, Baker ventures into a more free-form Terry Allen-influenced style, occasionally with a beat poet-esque flavour.

Sam Baker’s first three albums (which start with Mercy first released in 2004) have a loose unity, which has led to them sometimes being referred to as the Pretty World Trilogy. On all three, the instrumental backing is spare and sparse, allowing the listener’s focus to rest on his skills as a storyteller. My first choice, Waves, comes from the debut album. It is a beautifully judged portrait of a recently bereaved man’s grief over the death of his wife. It also achieves an almost seamless marriage between music and words which is reminiscent of the work of great songwriters like Gordon Lightfoot The beautifully understated backing vocal here is by Jessi Colter.

The next selection, Iron, is another example of Baker’s skill in depicting characters (in this case a husband and wife trapped in a destructive relationship) within the confines of a short song. The song also reflects his tolerance for human frailty. As in much of his other work, there is also a ‘spiritual’ element to the song, although this is far removed from conventional religiosity. Indeed, in one live performance, Baker suggested ‘Car Wreck Redemption’ as an alternative title for it. It has a feel of a classic country duet (the female part is taken by Joy Lynn White), although Baker is far from a conventional country singer.

In the hands of another singer, the sentiments of my next choice, Pretty World, might appear rather trite or banal. Given Baker’s experiences, however, they show his gratitude for the mere fact of being alive (to “wallow in the habitual, the banal” as the great Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, put it) and enjoying what might otherwise be regarded as simple pleasures. It also features one of his finest melodies and some nicely understated guitar/violin interplay.

The next selection, Broken Fingers is probably Sam Baker’s best song to date. It is a reflection on his experiences at the time of the explosion in Peru and on the effects these have had on his subsequent life. This superb live performance brings out the beauty of the song’s melody even more than the original studio performance does. It is one of those songs that brings out the truth of Bob Dylan’s observation that “behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain”.

Mennonite, the next selection, is one of Sam Baker’s wittiest songs. It also features his best opening lines – ones so finely crafted that even Townes or Guy would have envied the skill which lies behind them:

He was a Mennonite
Came from Mexico
He went to work for his uncle
Out in Weslaco

Indeed, like the best songs of Woody Guthrie and John Prine, many of Baker’s finest ones also have a deceptive simplicity. This sometimes means that their subtleties and layers of meaning only become apparent with repeated listening. This live performance of the song displays some fine mandolin picking by Tim Lorsch, while the introduction gives an indication of Baker’s onstage wit:

Angel Hair is another of Baker’s haunting short stories in a song. It also features some fine piano playing by Steve Conn, which adds a new layer to Baker’s musical style. His willingness to vary musical direction is even more apparent in his next album, Say Grace, first released in 2013. This has a fuller sound than on his previous records, as evidenced by the appearance of Oliver Steck on trumpet on Isn’t Love Great and Joel Guzman on accordion on Migrants. In some respects, the latter could be seen as an updated version of the sentiments found in Woody Guthrie’s classic song, Deportees. However, it is a strong enough song to bear the comparison and its message of compassion and empathy towards migrants is extremely topical at the moment.

By contrast, Isn’t Love Great is another slyly witty song which also has an acerbically bitter-sweet quality which is reminiscent of John Prine at his best.

My next two choices come from Sam Baker’s 2017 album, Land Of Doubt. Of these, Peace Out is a piano-driven ballad about a seemingly doomed relationship. It also has a lovely rolling melody which, as with many of Baker’s songs, has an underlying air of melancholy. My other selection, The Feast Of Saint Valentine, is unusual in Baker’s work for its highly wrought arrangement which builds up to a dramatic finale. It also features some superb trumpet-piano interplay.

The bonus track, Thursday, first appeared on Sam Baker’s debut album, Mercy, but I have chosen the version from his 2019 live album Horses And Stars for inclusion. For me at least, its raw quality better suits the theme of the song. Thursday also demonstrates his outstanding eye for telling details (such as the “huggies in the front” of the car and the “baby junk” and the girl in the window at the drive-through restaurant who asks “Mam is something wrong?”).

Like many of his songs, it also centres on a moment of epiphany, in this case one where the central character realises that she has no other choice but to keep on going, however hard this may seem. As in his previous work, these songs manage to combine a keen grasp of the everyday with a sense that the individuals described in them are seeking some kind of transcendence which goes far beyond such concerns.

As Robert Christgau has put it, Sam Baker’s music “is simultaneously beautiful and broken, like cracked crockery”. This selection is merely designed as an introduction, as the rest of his work is just as worthy of investigation. Dig in, you will not be disappointed.

This piece is dedicated to our friend, Dave Stephens (1942-2025), whose knowledge of and enthusiasm for Texan music was an inspiration.

PRAISE FOR SAM BAKER

“American gothic.” Bernie Taupin

​“Songs right up out of the ancient savaged earth. Stunning spooky & very beautiful.” Terry Allen

“A revelation – storytelling at its finest. With shades of the best of the beat poets.” Mary Gauthier

“Coming 15 years after his debut album, Sam Baker has released his first live album and Horses And Stars is a corker of a record that captures everything that is great about his live performances.” Jim Finnie, Americana UK

“One of the greatest Texan storytellers.” Remo Ricaldone, Lonestar Time

“Sam isn’t a singer, so much as a storyteller; that is his charm and his magic.” Helen Mitchell, FATEA magazine

Sam Baker official website

More People Should Know About: Sam Baker
Americana UK, Jonathan Smith, July 2024

Catching up on his tour in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Americana Highways, Brian DeSpain interview, January 2022

Sam Baker: Finding Grace In The Wake Of Destruction
NPR Music interview, January 2018

NPR’s Fresh Air interview by Terry Gross (YouTube 2017)

Sam Baker. Survivor Turned Storyteller.
Rockshot mag, Craig Scott interview, November 2014

Sam Baker’s ‘Say Grace’ Is At Once Beautiful And Broken
Robert Christgau, album review, August 2013

Sam Baker’s State of Grace
Lone Star Music magazine, Tiffany Walker interview, July 2013

Andrew Shields is a freelance historian, who grew up in the West of Ireland and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Along with an interest in history, politics and literature, his other principal occupations are listening to and reading about the music of Bob Dylan and, in more recent years, immersing himself in the often brilliant and unduly neglected music of Phil Ochs.

Read the Toppermosts on some of the other artists referred to in this post: Terry Allen, Guy Clark, Kevin Coyne, Ray Davies, Mary Gauthier, Woody Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt

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