ThisIsTexasMusic.com
July 2007
By Patrick Nichols
Devastatingly beautiful. That's the best
way to describe Sam Baker's Pretty World.
And the superlatives don't end there.
"Odessa" just may be one of the finest
songs I've ever heard, intricately
interweaving the traditional "Hard Times
Come Again No More" with the tale of an
oil baron whose besotted self-indulgence
takes the life of his young love. It's a loss
he never can shake, despite growing riches
from the ever-flowing West Texas crude.
And it's a rich novella, told in under 6
minutes. As on his 2004 debut Mercy,
Baker celebrates humanity in all of our
sacred-and-profane intricacies. "Pretty
World" and especially "Sweetly Undone"
border on the artfully erotic:
Remember New Year's Eve? And no it's not
a test
At the top of the stairs you slowly
undressed…
Oh father oh son, slowly undress
Sweetly undone
Yet darkness lurks in the sadistic
taskmaster of "Psychic" and particularly
the haunting memories of "Broken Fingers":
How long ago? Sixteen years
Every day, of course I know…
Forget his face? Of course I don't
Etched like a crystal vase
These broken fingers, some things don't
heal
I can't wake up from a dream when the
dream is real…
There are blue eyes, a silhouette
There is a debt, a debt I don't forget
Baker was seriously injured in a train
attacked by Peruvian guerrillas in 1986,
and in the years following he worked on
recovery both physical and spiritual. He
refined his storytelling, learned to play
guitar with his left hand, and, through
vocals irreparably altered by the bombing,
began to share his wonder at the beautiful
complexity of life. His songs are
meticulously crafted and almost Cormac
McCarthy-ian in their restraint. There are
no wasted syllables; there is no wall of
sound. Instead, we simply hear a man with
an acoustic guitar and a scraggly voice,
backed by occasional guitars, strings, and
drums. The music is absorbing, the lyrics
moving. Forget concentrating on anything
else while the album plays. Pretty World
has dominated my listening for nearly two
months now, each session embedding it a
little deeper into my soul. Let it into yours,
too.
July 2007
By Patrick Nichols
Devastatingly beautiful. That's the best
way to describe Sam Baker's Pretty World.
And the superlatives don't end there.
"Odessa" just may be one of the finest
songs I've ever heard, intricately
interweaving the traditional "Hard Times
Come Again No More" with the tale of an
oil baron whose besotted self-indulgence
takes the life of his young love. It's a loss
he never can shake, despite growing riches
from the ever-flowing West Texas crude.
And it's a rich novella, told in under 6
minutes. As on his 2004 debut Mercy,
Baker celebrates humanity in all of our
sacred-and-profane intricacies. "Pretty
World" and especially "Sweetly Undone"
border on the artfully erotic:
Remember New Year's Eve? And no it's not
a test
At the top of the stairs you slowly
undressed…
Oh father oh son, slowly undress
Sweetly undone
Yet darkness lurks in the sadistic
taskmaster of "Psychic" and particularly
the haunting memories of "Broken Fingers":
How long ago? Sixteen years
Every day, of course I know…
Forget his face? Of course I don't
Etched like a crystal vase
These broken fingers, some things don't
heal
I can't wake up from a dream when the
dream is real…
There are blue eyes, a silhouette
There is a debt, a debt I don't forget
Baker was seriously injured in a train
attacked by Peruvian guerrillas in 1986,
and in the years following he worked on
recovery both physical and spiritual. He
refined his storytelling, learned to play
guitar with his left hand, and, through
vocals irreparably altered by the bombing,
began to share his wonder at the beautiful
complexity of life. His songs are
meticulously crafted and almost Cormac
McCarthy-ian in their restraint. There are
no wasted syllables; there is no wall of
sound. Instead, we simply hear a man with
an acoustic guitar and a scraggly voice,
backed by occasional guitars, strings, and
drums. The music is absorbing, the lyrics
moving. Forget concentrating on anything
else while the album plays. Pretty World
has dominated my listening for nearly two
months now, each session embedding it a
little deeper into my soul. Let it into yours,
too.
Folk & Acoustic Music
Exchange
by Bob Gottlieb
This Texas songwriter is not a singer with
a pretty voice, he more thrusts the words
out of his mouth in his husky gravelly
voice than sings, but it is those words that
are important here; the way he puts those
words together and they stories they
form.. This is a spare but beautiful disc in
many ways; Walt Wilkins and Tim Lorsch
produce it and they fully utilize the talents
of the musicians of Nashville and Austin to
showoff these story songs in the best light.
They enlisted the gifts of people such as
Joel Guzman, accordion, Lloyd Maines,
resophonic guitar and pedal steel, Gurf
Morlix, voice and electric guitar and
Marcia Ramirez's voice, among many
others.
.
Baker's stories have the minute details that
display that he knows what he is writing
of. It is this combination of detail and
knowledge that give his stories the ring of
truth of experience. For example, in
Psychic, he sings:
He uses whips on his horses
He is that kind of man
You pretend he whispers so you don't take
a stand
But there are scares on the flanks
They look like fans
The horses are scared
Their eyes roll white
Not sure his voice or delivery are for
everyone, but the songs sure are worth the
listening. The musicians, both in his band
and the guests, leave plenty of room for his
songs to make their statement, and their
inner beauty to shine through. There is
much to be gained from his outlook for all
who will take the time to listen.
Edited by: David N. Pyles
Exchange
by Bob Gottlieb
This Texas songwriter is not a singer with
a pretty voice, he more thrusts the words
out of his mouth in his husky gravelly
voice than sings, but it is those words that
are important here; the way he puts those
words together and they stories they
form.. This is a spare but beautiful disc in
many ways; Walt Wilkins and Tim Lorsch
produce it and they fully utilize the talents
of the musicians of Nashville and Austin to
showoff these story songs in the best light.
They enlisted the gifts of people such as
Joel Guzman, accordion, Lloyd Maines,
resophonic guitar and pedal steel, Gurf
Morlix, voice and electric guitar and
Marcia Ramirez's voice, among many
others.
.
Baker's stories have the minute details that
display that he knows what he is writing
of. It is this combination of detail and
knowledge that give his stories the ring of
truth of experience. For example, in
Psychic, he sings:
He uses whips on his horses
He is that kind of man
You pretend he whispers so you don't take
a stand
But there are scares on the flanks
They look like fans
The horses are scared
Their eyes roll white
Not sure his voice or delivery are for
everyone, but the songs sure are worth the
listening. The musicians, both in his band
and the guests, leave plenty of room for his
songs to make their statement, and their
inner beauty to shine through. There is
much to be gained from his outlook for all
who will take the time to listen.
Edited by: David N. Pyles
Paste Magazine
August 2007
By Geoffrey Himes
Few songwriters can write verses
evocative enough that they need no
explaining in the chorus. Fewer still can
resist explaining things anyway for
listeners who aren’t willing to draw their
own conclusions. Townes Van Zandt
could resist that temptation, and so could
the later Joni Mitchell and the later John
Prine. And on his new album, “Pretty
World,” Sam Baker writes verses so
sharply observed—so taut with tension
between the life his characters want and
the life they actually have—that nothing
more need be said. The few times that
Baker does use a chorus, it's to add not an
explanation but yet another striking image.
There’s no reason you should have heard
of Baker. This is the second album the
Austin artist has released on his own label
with almost no promotion, but industry
insiders such as Lucinda Williams’ ex-
producer Gurf Morlix and Steve Earle’s
former manager John Lomax recognized
his 2004 debut, “Mercy," as one of the
best singer-songwriter discs of the decade,
and “Pretty World” is nearly as good. Like
his role models Prine and Van Zandt, Baker
doesn’t have much of a voice, but he
husbands his vocal resources skillfully,
hanging them on simple but catchy
melodies and allowing his producer Walt
Wilkins to flesh out the songs with tasteful
chamber-pop arrangements.
In the opening song, “Juarez," a Texas frat
boy in “a blue suede cowboy hat” sits in a
Mexican whorehouse; the woman in his lap
with “eyes painted like clay except colder”
bitches about getting old as the frat boy
sings Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around To
Die." “Slots” conjures up a woman in a
Reno casino, a roll of quarters in one hand
and a gin and tonic in the other, singing the
gospel hymns of her long-gone youth as
she drops one coin after another into the
slot. “Odessa” describes a West Texas kid
who inherited his daddy’s oil fortune but
not his daddy’s sense of purpose; now he
sits alone on his daddy’s porch, thinking of
“the girl who was penned in the ‘Vette,…
her face was blood and diamonds; he
remembers her that way."
Baker doesn’t make it easy on the listener—
there are no explanations and no
comforting reassurances. But the songs do
offer the startling recognition of lives that
are as messy and disappointing as those in
the real world—lives that rarely make it
through the simplifying process of pop
culture. What victories there are—the
beautiful woman sunbathing in “Sweetly
Undone” or the home-made Christmas
meal offered in “Days”—are small victories
but all the more valuable for being within
our grasp.
August 2007
By Geoffrey Himes
Few songwriters can write verses
evocative enough that they need no
explaining in the chorus. Fewer still can
resist explaining things anyway for
listeners who aren’t willing to draw their
own conclusions. Townes Van Zandt
could resist that temptation, and so could
the later Joni Mitchell and the later John
Prine. And on his new album, “Pretty
World,” Sam Baker writes verses so
sharply observed—so taut with tension
between the life his characters want and
the life they actually have—that nothing
more need be said. The few times that
Baker does use a chorus, it's to add not an
explanation but yet another striking image.
There’s no reason you should have heard
of Baker. This is the second album the
Austin artist has released on his own label
with almost no promotion, but industry
insiders such as Lucinda Williams’ ex-
producer Gurf Morlix and Steve Earle’s
former manager John Lomax recognized
his 2004 debut, “Mercy," as one of the
best singer-songwriter discs of the decade,
and “Pretty World” is nearly as good. Like
his role models Prine and Van Zandt, Baker
doesn’t have much of a voice, but he
husbands his vocal resources skillfully,
hanging them on simple but catchy
melodies and allowing his producer Walt
Wilkins to flesh out the songs with tasteful
chamber-pop arrangements.
In the opening song, “Juarez," a Texas frat
boy in “a blue suede cowboy hat” sits in a
Mexican whorehouse; the woman in his lap
with “eyes painted like clay except colder”
bitches about getting old as the frat boy
sings Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around To
Die." “Slots” conjures up a woman in a
Reno casino, a roll of quarters in one hand
and a gin and tonic in the other, singing the
gospel hymns of her long-gone youth as
she drops one coin after another into the
slot. “Odessa” describes a West Texas kid
who inherited his daddy’s oil fortune but
not his daddy’s sense of purpose; now he
sits alone on his daddy’s porch, thinking of
“the girl who was penned in the ‘Vette,…
her face was blood and diamonds; he
remembers her that way."
Baker doesn’t make it easy on the listener—
there are no explanations and no
comforting reassurances. But the songs do
offer the startling recognition of lives that
are as messy and disappointing as those in
the real world—lives that rarely make it
through the simplifying process of pop
culture. What victories there are—the
beautiful woman sunbathing in “Sweetly
Undone” or the home-made Christmas
meal offered in “Days”—are small victories
but all the more valuable for being within
our grasp.
Folkwax
Arthur Wood
July 18, 2007
Real-Deal, Cut-To-The-Chase,
Pretty World is Itasca, Texas-born, Sam
Baker's sophomore solo album. It comes
three years after he self-released his
twelve-track debut Mercy. As far as Baker
is concerned, I feel like something of a
Johnny-come-lately. A friend sent me a
CDR copy of the latter recording complete
with artwork about a year back and I
faintly recall that I gave it a cursory
hearing at the time. It was during a
breakfast conversation with a Texas-born
friend at Kerrville's International House of
Pancakes during my recent Folk festival
trip that Baker's name came up, followed
by a must-buy Mercy recommendation.
Well my usual Austin haunts were clean
out of Mercy, but a day later I came up
trumps at Sundance Records in San
Marcos. Well, truth to tell, the new front
cover artwork, relative to the CDR version,
threw me for a minute. Once inserted, the
Mercy disc remained in the CD player alive
and rotating till I handed back that hire car
at Bergstrom Airport in Austin many days
later. As an original song collection it is
truly that good, so go get yourself some
Mercy today.
On Pretty World, in support of Baker's
songs, album producers Walt Wilkins and
Tim Lorsch reprise their roles - once again
impeccably and with aplomb - while the
main support players Watkins (vocal,
acoustic guitar), Lorsch (violin, octave
violin, and mandolin), Mike Daly (pedal
steel guitar, resophonic guitar), Ron De La
Vega (bass, cello), and Mickey Grimm
(drums, percussion) are augmented on this
occasion by Rick Plant (electric guitar).
Where the twelve song titles on Mercy
each consisted of an economic single
word, Baker has been considerably more
adventurous on Pretty World and among
his second dozen creations three of them
feature a generous two-word title while
two cuts are instrumentals - albeit that the
longer of the latter features the chorus
from the album title song. As before, Baker
supplies vocal, acoustic guitar, and
harmonica, while the coterie of
supplementary players on this occasion
includes Joel Guzman (accordion), Fats
Kaplan (accordion), Lloyd Maines (pedal
steel guitar, resophonic guitar), and Gurf
Morlix (vocal, electric guitar). The main
venue for the recording sessions was once
again Nashville's Dog Den Studio, plus
some additional recording took place in
Austin - Sam's current base - at Ray
Benson's (Asleep At The Wheel) Bismeaux
Studio.
As I noted earlier, the song titles are mostly
single words, except that in the liner
booklet the opening track appears as
"Juarez (A Song To Himself)." Set in a
borderland whorehouse the repeated hook
in each verse pretty much runs to "He
sings an old song/A song to himself/He
sings waiting round to die." Anyone with a
modicum of knowledge of the songs of
Townes Van Zandt will recognise the final
four words in the foregoing quote as a
song title that graced the late Texan's
eponymous debut album For The Sake Of
The Song in 1968. I guess you may have
to be mature in years to truly get Baker's
vignette. In the fourth verse "A beautiful
woman/Wraps around his shoulder" utters
the astute summation "hell of a deal, ain't it
- getting older." The main character in
"Orphan" is abandoned by her mother and
subsequently raised in a children's home
where she wasn't exactly loved - "A
straight haired kid in a house full of curls."
As the song draws to a close, now a
grown woman, we learn that she has
deserted one fiancé, two husbands, and is
currently living with a fourth man. In
"Slots" an old woman who resides in a
trailer park sits gambling in a Reno casino.
"Pretty World" includes some poignant
only-in-the-moment reflections that make
our existence on this planet rather special.
Baker's musician sister, Chris, opens
"Odessa" by singing the opening verse
from Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come
Again No More," following which Baker
picks up the saga of a family who pulled
black gold from below the Texas earth and
of their errant young male offspring - "He
was an Odessa boy with a daddy in the
money" who "killed a girl when he rolled
the Corvette/Daddy's money made her
lawyers go away." Now grown old and
living alone in his "dead daddy's place," still
a bachelor, the former Odessa boy will
depart this plane leaving no tangible genetic
footprint. In the closing verse, Baker
remarks that the course of our lives can be
irrevocably changed by a single event, "See
he loved the girl who was penned in the
Vette," and as the track closes Chris
reprises "Hard Times...," this time as
counterpoint to her brother's vocal.
Across a mere two hundred seconds in
"Sweetly Undone," Baker has penned the
most exquisitely beautiful and sensuous
love song I've heard in many a year. It's a
hot summer's afternoon as a couple lie by
the pool in St. Augustine, Florida. He has a
copy of Twain and she a book on Africa.
Nearby there are cardinals and roses. He
reflects that there's been lots of rain and
that her top is undone. Then he recalls that
New Year's Eve when "Oh father, oh son"
he saw her slowly undress for the first
time.
Baker cranks up the pace for the lyrically
edgy and dark "Psychic," the pivotal line
being that in this life "You gotta choose
truth, or you gotta choose lies." In Baker's
"Boxes" a woman uses such receptacles
for storing her mementoes, photographs,
trophies, ribbons, Valentine cards, and
more. As for 'more'...for many American
families, in recent decades, there has been
a letter, one whose receipt "Came on a day
that turned black/A grateful nation informs
you/Your first lieutenant is not coming
home."
"Prelude" is a thirty-second-long
instrumental played on accordion and it's
followed by the sombre "Broken Fingers,"
which if put to the test I'd guess is a
remembrance in the vein of "Steel" (on
Mercy) - "Some things don't heal/I can't
wake up from a dream/When the dream is
real/These broken fingers" - of the 1986
explosion in Peru in which Baker was a
victim. "Days" is sung in Spanish, while
the lyric appears in English in the liner
booklet. Set in December it portrays a
family scene, hectic and joyous as the
evening meal is prepared. Baker closes
with the simple invitation to communion -
"Dinner is ready they say/Come to the
table/Come." As I mentioned in the second
paragraph of this review toward the close
of the atmospheric second instrumental,
"Pretty World Recessional," the chorus
from the album title song is reprised by
Sam Baker and Marcia Ramirez.
In recent times the name of many
musicians have been bandied around in an
attempt to describe Baker's music,
including that of John Prine. The only
connection I perceive that relates Baker
and Prine is that they both write songs,
while in the mould of real-deal,
cut-to-the-chase Texas scribes Guy Clark
and Terry Allen, Sam Baker is a true song
poet. It's all down to an economy with
words...something about painting the
whole picture, telling the whole story.
Arthur Wood is a founding editor of
FolkWax
Arthur Wood
July 18, 2007
Real-Deal, Cut-To-The-Chase,
Pretty World is Itasca, Texas-born, Sam
Baker's sophomore solo album. It comes
three years after he self-released his
twelve-track debut Mercy. As far as Baker
is concerned, I feel like something of a
Johnny-come-lately. A friend sent me a
CDR copy of the latter recording complete
with artwork about a year back and I
faintly recall that I gave it a cursory
hearing at the time. It was during a
breakfast conversation with a Texas-born
friend at Kerrville's International House of
Pancakes during my recent Folk festival
trip that Baker's name came up, followed
by a must-buy Mercy recommendation.
Well my usual Austin haunts were clean
out of Mercy, but a day later I came up
trumps at Sundance Records in San
Marcos. Well, truth to tell, the new front
cover artwork, relative to the CDR version,
threw me for a minute. Once inserted, the
Mercy disc remained in the CD player alive
and rotating till I handed back that hire car
at Bergstrom Airport in Austin many days
later. As an original song collection it is
truly that good, so go get yourself some
Mercy today.
On Pretty World, in support of Baker's
songs, album producers Walt Wilkins and
Tim Lorsch reprise their roles - once again
impeccably and with aplomb - while the
main support players Watkins (vocal,
acoustic guitar), Lorsch (violin, octave
violin, and mandolin), Mike Daly (pedal
steel guitar, resophonic guitar), Ron De La
Vega (bass, cello), and Mickey Grimm
(drums, percussion) are augmented on this
occasion by Rick Plant (electric guitar).
Where the twelve song titles on Mercy
each consisted of an economic single
word, Baker has been considerably more
adventurous on Pretty World and among
his second dozen creations three of them
feature a generous two-word title while
two cuts are instrumentals - albeit that the
longer of the latter features the chorus
from the album title song. As before, Baker
supplies vocal, acoustic guitar, and
harmonica, while the coterie of
supplementary players on this occasion
includes Joel Guzman (accordion), Fats
Kaplan (accordion), Lloyd Maines (pedal
steel guitar, resophonic guitar), and Gurf
Morlix (vocal, electric guitar). The main
venue for the recording sessions was once
again Nashville's Dog Den Studio, plus
some additional recording took place in
Austin - Sam's current base - at Ray
Benson's (Asleep At The Wheel) Bismeaux
Studio.
As I noted earlier, the song titles are mostly
single words, except that in the liner
booklet the opening track appears as
"Juarez (A Song To Himself)." Set in a
borderland whorehouse the repeated hook
in each verse pretty much runs to "He
sings an old song/A song to himself/He
sings waiting round to die." Anyone with a
modicum of knowledge of the songs of
Townes Van Zandt will recognise the final
four words in the foregoing quote as a
song title that graced the late Texan's
eponymous debut album For The Sake Of
The Song in 1968. I guess you may have
to be mature in years to truly get Baker's
vignette. In the fourth verse "A beautiful
woman/Wraps around his shoulder" utters
the astute summation "hell of a deal, ain't it
- getting older." The main character in
"Orphan" is abandoned by her mother and
subsequently raised in a children's home
where she wasn't exactly loved - "A
straight haired kid in a house full of curls."
As the song draws to a close, now a
grown woman, we learn that she has
deserted one fiancé, two husbands, and is
currently living with a fourth man. In
"Slots" an old woman who resides in a
trailer park sits gambling in a Reno casino.
"Pretty World" includes some poignant
only-in-the-moment reflections that make
our existence on this planet rather special.
Baker's musician sister, Chris, opens
"Odessa" by singing the opening verse
from Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come
Again No More," following which Baker
picks up the saga of a family who pulled
black gold from below the Texas earth and
of their errant young male offspring - "He
was an Odessa boy with a daddy in the
money" who "killed a girl when he rolled
the Corvette/Daddy's money made her
lawyers go away." Now grown old and
living alone in his "dead daddy's place," still
a bachelor, the former Odessa boy will
depart this plane leaving no tangible genetic
footprint. In the closing verse, Baker
remarks that the course of our lives can be
irrevocably changed by a single event, "See
he loved the girl who was penned in the
Vette," and as the track closes Chris
reprises "Hard Times...," this time as
counterpoint to her brother's vocal.
Across a mere two hundred seconds in
"Sweetly Undone," Baker has penned the
most exquisitely beautiful and sensuous
love song I've heard in many a year. It's a
hot summer's afternoon as a couple lie by
the pool in St. Augustine, Florida. He has a
copy of Twain and she a book on Africa.
Nearby there are cardinals and roses. He
reflects that there's been lots of rain and
that her top is undone. Then he recalls that
New Year's Eve when "Oh father, oh son"
he saw her slowly undress for the first
time.
Baker cranks up the pace for the lyrically
edgy and dark "Psychic," the pivotal line
being that in this life "You gotta choose
truth, or you gotta choose lies." In Baker's
"Boxes" a woman uses such receptacles
for storing her mementoes, photographs,
trophies, ribbons, Valentine cards, and
more. As for 'more'...for many American
families, in recent decades, there has been
a letter, one whose receipt "Came on a day
that turned black/A grateful nation informs
you/Your first lieutenant is not coming
home."
"Prelude" is a thirty-second-long
instrumental played on accordion and it's
followed by the sombre "Broken Fingers,"
which if put to the test I'd guess is a
remembrance in the vein of "Steel" (on
Mercy) - "Some things don't heal/I can't
wake up from a dream/When the dream is
real/These broken fingers" - of the 1986
explosion in Peru in which Baker was a
victim. "Days" is sung in Spanish, while
the lyric appears in English in the liner
booklet. Set in December it portrays a
family scene, hectic and joyous as the
evening meal is prepared. Baker closes
with the simple invitation to communion -
"Dinner is ready they say/Come to the
table/Come." As I mentioned in the second
paragraph of this review toward the close
of the atmospheric second instrumental,
"Pretty World Recessional," the chorus
from the album title song is reprised by
Sam Baker and Marcia Ramirez.
In recent times the name of many
musicians have been bandied around in an
attempt to describe Baker's music,
including that of John Prine. The only
connection I perceive that relates Baker
and Prine is that they both write songs,
while in the mould of real-deal,
cut-to-the-chase Texas scribes Guy Clark
and Terry Allen, Sam Baker is a true song
poet. It's all down to an economy with
words...something about painting the
whole picture, telling the whole story.
Arthur Wood is a founding editor of
FolkWax
Houston Press
By William Michael Smith
Published: August 16, 2007
Sam Baker: Organic, windswept Americana.
Some artists — Sam Baker, for instance — don't
let limited vocal ability keep them from making
amazing records. Baker sings about the same way
he talks, in a halting stutter like he's not always
sure he's saying the right word. But like any true
artist, Baker makes the most of his gifts. His songs
are so organic, and the damaged people in them
so ordinary, they could have just sprouted right
through the dust of some windswept, half-
forgotten West Texas town like Wink, Seminole
or Dumas. The surreal "Juarez" and chilling
"Odessa" demonstrate Baker's gift for minimalist
yet gritty storytelling, while tunes like "Sweetly
Undone," "Days" and "Broken Fingers" show an
exacting eye for the small details that glue
families and lovers together. Like the lyrics, the
arrangements are sparse yet complicated, and
producers Walt Wilkins and Tim Lorsch have
done a stellar job of keeping the racket down and
letting the songs stand out. Pretty World should
be sitting pretty when the best-of lists roll out in
December, because for Americana, this is as good
as it gets.
http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-08-
16/music/sam-baker/
By William Michael Smith
Published: August 16, 2007
Sam Baker: Organic, windswept Americana.
Some artists — Sam Baker, for instance — don't
let limited vocal ability keep them from making
amazing records. Baker sings about the same way
he talks, in a halting stutter like he's not always
sure he's saying the right word. But like any true
artist, Baker makes the most of his gifts. His songs
are so organic, and the damaged people in them
so ordinary, they could have just sprouted right
through the dust of some windswept, half-
forgotten West Texas town like Wink, Seminole
or Dumas. The surreal "Juarez" and chilling
"Odessa" demonstrate Baker's gift for minimalist
yet gritty storytelling, while tunes like "Sweetly
Undone," "Days" and "Broken Fingers" show an
exacting eye for the small details that glue
families and lovers together. Like the lyrics, the
arrangements are sparse yet complicated, and
producers Walt Wilkins and Tim Lorsch have
done a stellar job of keeping the racket down and
letting the songs stand out. Pretty World should
be sitting pretty when the best-of lists roll out in
December, because for Americana, this is as good
as it gets.
http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-08-
16/music/sam-baker/
Dave Marsh
August 2007
Pretty World, Sam Baker (An Independent
Release)—Being on a Peruvian train that got
bombed left Baker with a singing voice that
resembles Todd Snider and John Prine, an
acquired taste. But his delicious narratives also
resemble Prine and Snider’s, especially in their
deadpan, matter of fact incorporation of oddball
facts. Several songs here are set in a whorehouse,
but it’s no Springsteen nightmare nor a Kinky
sportin’ house, mainly a place where folks live and
work amidst a certain strangeness. In this context,
it makes perfect sense to open “Odessa,” a song
about a rich West Texas kid who resembles so
much as a slightly more benign (no high office)
version of George W. Bush: “He killed a girl
when he rolled the Corvette / Daddy’s money
made her lawyers go away / His mother bought
vodka with all that cash / She kind of knew / She
kind of knew.” In the end, as beautiful as it is
strange, and vice versa.
August 2007
Pretty World, Sam Baker (An Independent
Release)—Being on a Peruvian train that got
bombed left Baker with a singing voice that
resembles Todd Snider and John Prine, an
acquired taste. But his delicious narratives also
resemble Prine and Snider’s, especially in their
deadpan, matter of fact incorporation of oddball
facts. Several songs here are set in a whorehouse,
but it’s no Springsteen nightmare nor a Kinky
sportin’ house, mainly a place where folks live and
work amidst a certain strangeness. In this context,
it makes perfect sense to open “Odessa,” a song
about a rich West Texas kid who resembles so
much as a slightly more benign (no high office)
version of George W. Bush: “He killed a girl
when he rolled the Corvette / Daddy’s money
made her lawyers go away / His mother bought
vodka with all that cash / She kind of knew / She
kind of knew.” In the end, as beautiful as it is
strange, and vice versa.
Bill Bentley
Studio City Sun
He lost some of his body and part of his
hearing from a time bomb on a train in
Peru in 1986. Coming out on the other side
of that kind of disaster has given Sam
Baker the chance to become someone
whose music exists outside time, walking
that fine line of eternity where it’s hard to
tell what’s in this world and what has
crossed on to the spirit side. His songs
have the striking edge of a sharp knife, and
cut as deep as music can. Some, like
“Sweetly Undone” and especially “Broken
Fingers,” make the heart beat fast and the
back of the throat throb with tightness,
while the eyes fight back tears and both
hands sweat with a damp fear. Music like
this comes from the great beyond, where
Baker must have an account paid in full
that lets him go there at will and make
withdrawals in his dreams. This kind of
greatness can’t be compared, but if
Townes Van Zandt was still with us, he
would be sitting alone in the corner
listening to Sam Baker, a warm half-pint of
vodka stuck down the front of his pants
and an old fringed jacket hanging on that
elegant frame, chuckling at how strange
life sometimes works out. Count on it.
Studio City Sun
He lost some of his body and part of his
hearing from a time bomb on a train in
Peru in 1986. Coming out on the other side
of that kind of disaster has given Sam
Baker the chance to become someone
whose music exists outside time, walking
that fine line of eternity where it’s hard to
tell what’s in this world and what has
crossed on to the spirit side. His songs
have the striking edge of a sharp knife, and
cut as deep as music can. Some, like
“Sweetly Undone” and especially “Broken
Fingers,” make the heart beat fast and the
back of the throat throb with tightness,
while the eyes fight back tears and both
hands sweat with a damp fear. Music like
this comes from the great beyond, where
Baker must have an account paid in full
that lets him go there at will and make
withdrawals in his dreams. This kind of
greatness can’t be compared, but if
Townes Van Zandt was still with us, he
would be sitting alone in the corner
listening to Sam Baker, a warm half-pint of
vodka stuck down the front of his pants
and an old fringed jacket hanging on that
elegant frame, chuckling at how strange
life sometimes works out. Count on it.
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