Les Sampou   Borrowed & Blue     http://www.LesSampou.com

Les Sampou, Borrowed & Blue
"Sampou excels at the kind of traditional guitar work that melds finger-picking, slide chords and single-note lines into a seamless whole that sounds like an entire acoustic band. Vocally, her vivid alto produced a spectrum of emotions from whispered confidences to effortless swoops, startling moans and exhilarating whoops... This is one singer who doesn't fit neatly into any one category - either blues or folk or acoustic rock - but she is able to command the stage as few acoustic solo performers can."
THE PATRIOT LEDGER, Stephen Ide
 
You can hear a pin drop when Les Sampou performs. When she wraps her arms around one of her steel string guitars, and with a three-octave range belts out songs full of vivid detail, audiences can't help but be transfixed. Occasionally, she will pull up to a piano, take out a harmonica or recite a poem; but she always tells a story about her song's genesis, drawing the listener in and making it personal.
 
Sampou is self-taught; she listened to records that ranged from Sarah Vaughn to the Talking Heads, in order to learn how to sing and play. As a result of this varied repertoire of "teachers," Sampou's music is eclectic and hard to categorize. She is a musical chameleon, singing like the "old timers" when she presents her classic country blues renditions, and then switching her elastic vocals to include dramatic nuances in her rock originals, twang in her country sing a-longs and velvet in her folk ballads. The thread is the conviction she displays in her passionate delivery.
 
Today, with her fourth album, "Borrowed & Blue," Sampou re-visits her roots. She performs sixteen country blues songs, originals as well as classics like "Big Road Blues" by Tommy Johnson, "Kokomo Blues" by Mississippi Fred McDowell, and "Statesboro Blues" by Blind Willie McTell. She accompanies herself on steel-string and slide guitars. "I call it "Borrowed & Blue" because I "borrow" most of the songs from other artists and even a few from my own past albums, and well, "Blue" is self-explanatory. There is however a double entendre: I got married recently, and everybody knows the old saying "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue"--- well, I couldn't resist," Sampou laughs.
 
"Borrowed & Blue" is a live-to-two track recording done in the spare room of friend and fellow musician J.P. Jones's home in Newport, RI. No band, no edits, no additional tracks. This is the Les Sampou that her audiences love: passionate, dynamic singing and big, bold guitar playing. "Borrowed & Blue" is an anthology of the Blues songs performed by Les at her concerts over the years--the majority of which never made it on to a CD recording. As Boston Globe critic and blues aficionado Elijah Wald said upon hearing "Borrowed & Blue," "If this album doesn't make a lot of people sit up and listen --well, there is no justice in the world."
 
Les Sampou got her start in Boston's Haymarket subway stop in 1985. Sampou remembers it as the "very first time I played in front of more than one person; I had terrific stage fright but was thrilled at the same time. A bit like watching a horror movie." Nevertheless, she went down into the tunnels to perform her small repertoire amid the shrieks of subway trains and the din of pedestrians, repeating her songs over and over again between stops, while people asked for directions and borrowed token money.
 
It was there in the tunnels that Sampou met Ellie Mae Higgins and together they started a duo called "Double Edge." Higgins and Sampou traded off guitar leads and rhythms, and lead and harmony vocals. It was during this time that Sampou delved into the Blues. She and Higgins covered old timey songs like "Irene" by Leadbelly, R&B and Motown tunes by the likes of Percy Sledge, James Brown, Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett, and a wide variety of country blues covers by musicians including Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and many more. Some of Sampou's early influences also include Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, and Lowell George of Little Feat. It was also during this time that Sampou learned a collection of classic Blues songs from Cambridge Bluesman Paul Rishell.
 
Over the next five to seven years, Les Sampou experimented with a few more short-lived duos and trios, and played solo sets at a circuit of bars, performing cover songs from the seventies and eighties. It wasn't until in 1989, that she began writing and performing all of her own material and within a year Sampou was taking it on the road, across the country, to Canada, and to Europe.
 
Despite her early yearnings for a rock 'n' roll band, it was Sampou's solo act that she became most comfortable with, and which grew successful enough for her to quit her day job. By her second CD, "Fall From Grace", Sampou was drawing widespread acclaim in the singer-songwriter market from Boston to California. Seasoned music critic Jay Miller from the Patriot Ledger sums it up:
 
"Discerning music fans hearing Les Sampou for the first time might wonder why her albums aren't selling in the millions. A standing-room-only crowd certainly went home entranced by Sampou; few of today's top songwriters produce more compelling or distinctive music than Sampou. As a musical storyteller, Sampou crafts vivid tales and delivers them with passion and flawless intonation. Saturday's show allowed a true appreciation of Sampou's soaring alto, as well as her multifaceted guitar work. Whether it was delicately finger-picked filigrees, heart-rending slide segments, slashing chords or sweet single-note melodies, Sampou created enough sound for a quintet all by herself."

In the decade of the nineties, Les Sampou performed at all the major folk festivals including Philadelphia Folk Festival, Winnipeg Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Falcon Ridge in NY, Strawberry Festival in California, and Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas where she won the coveted "New Folk Award" ...winning out of 686 contestants. Sampou also began giving workshops at Berklee School of Music, at festivals, and for private groups on the Business of Music, Blues Guitar, and Songwriting.
 
Since 1993, Sampou has released four albums: two on her own label, MoNando Music, and two with the well-known Cambridge label, Rounder Records. In 1993, Les released "Sweet Perfume," grabbing the attention of DJs and press people in the Boston area who gave her unanimous praise and support culminating in the Best New Artist award from WUMB, the state's popular folk and singer-songwriter station. Rounder Records signed Sampou shortly after that, and her second album, "Fall from Grace," was released in 1996, topping the Gavin Americana charts nationwide. Her third album, also on Rounder, was released in 1999 under the self-titled name of "Les Sampou," and it represented a sweeping change stylistically for her, producing a modern rock arrangement that garnered high praise:
 
ALL-MUSIC GUIDE, Cub Koda
"Sampou takes a left turn from her usual folk-blues sound to embrace a bit more of modern rock arrangements and guitar sounds to cushion the brutal reality of her often pointed lyrics. It all works magnificently, with songs "Broken Pieces," "Hanging by a Thread" and "I Want You" all resonate with music and production every bit as fine as the songwriting they frame. Plenty of raw emotion and great sounds."
 
DIGITALCITY BOSTON
"Les Sampou" is a remarkable CD full of the kind of songs you play over and over again. Listening to songs like "I Want You" -- and believe me I've listened to it enough to wear a groove in my CD -- you can only wonder why Sampou isn't in regular rotation on radio stations across the country. Sampou's intelligent heartfelt lyrics make the current flavors of the month on the radio sound like the lightweights they are."
 
But it is with this last album, "Borrowed & Blue," that the demand from her fans has finally been fulfilled: Les "live and blue." Sampou says, "I figured it was time to lay down all those numbers I've been playing over the years. I think up until now, I wasn't ready to sit down all musically naked-like and be raw and real like the old timers who did it with such familiar ease... I guess it takes getting older (or maybe some good bourbon) and being less concerned with others' critiques, which I have done. One of the good things about getting old as my Grandma Lou always used to say, is you just don't care anymore what people think. So lately, I started saying to myself it's about time (I can hear the collective "Damn Right!") that I did a CD for all the folks who have been coming to my shows to hear me do the blues. So, "Borrowed & Blue" is for my fans with gratitude."
 
 

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