#sam moss

Album Review: Sam Moss - Blues Approved

Sam Moss was a legend in Winston-Salem, N.C., - “our Guru of Groove, the Maharishi of Mojo,” as Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids put it - revered for his club performances and promotion of the blues. He was one of those guys whom everybody thought should make a record.

Turns out, Moss - who died in 2007 - did make a record. In 1977. It’s just been rediscovered, restored and is out as Blues Approved.

But don’t be fooled by the title. While Moss’ music has underpinnings of blues, there is much more. And though the LP can fairly be described as derivative, Moss derived from all the right sources.

“Rooster Blood” finds the sound of Donald Fagen’s the Nightfly even before Fagen did so. “Vida Blanche” rolls like the Stones with “Bitch”-y horns and ribald lyrics. Little Feat could’ve twisted the druggy “My Man Mike” into a Down on the Farm number. And the instrumental “Nightflight Over Berlin” screams Frank Zappa.

Rounded out with a handful of covers from separate sessions - including a lo-fi recording of a teenage Moss playing Buck Owens’ Act Naturally” in a church basement, plus takes on the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman’s “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” and the Stones’ “Who’s Driving Your Plane?” - Blues Approved is the sound of memories for those who were there and what could’ve beens for everyone else.

Grade card: Sam Moss - Blues Approved - B-

Sam Moss (She/Her)

Evan Pearce (He/Him)

Calliope Morris (She/Her)

Nicky Dixon (He/Him)

Freddie Shaw (He/Him)

Chip Romero (He/Him)

Shapes by Sam Moss

Sam Moss is a heck of a guitar player when he’s in the mood, fluent in folk, jazz, blues and country styles, able to toss off wry six-string complications without as much as a twitch. He plays locally in a country and western covers band called Rear Defroster, whose raucous good-time vibe erupts periodically in a display of technical virtuosity. Yet Moss also has the gift of restraint. His latest album Shapes is pared down to smoke and shadows, the instrumental parts reticent, the melodies strong but tremulous, delivered in a thread-worn, murmurous tenor, the backing band kept to a minimum, drums bass, occasional strings and not much of them. Much like Richard Buckner and Damien Jurado and other soft-spoken artists, Moss has the ability to make much of few inputs and to land a devastating punch with hardly any force at all.

Rob Noyes & Sam Moss / Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock

Bandcamp Monday! Today, we’ve got two excellent new cassette duets from the always reliable Scissor Tail Records. First up: guitarist Rob Noyes and fiddler Sam Moss (Sam is also a great singer-songwriter) communing harmoniously. Dusty trails, deep forests, untold thickets — Noyes and Moss sound absolutely perfect together wherever they go, listening closely to one another and leaving plenty of space for the listener to fill in with his or her own imagination. Really beautiful stuff. Next! It’s Scissor Tail head honcho Dylan Aycock improvising on 12-string with Joshua Massad adding tabla and sitar. A flowing river of sound, a meeting of the minds. In fact it makes me think a bit of A Meeting By The River, that great Ry Cooder / Vishwa Mohan Bhatt collab. The little touches that Aycock adds (bits of synth and percussion) really sweeten the deal as well. Fantastic ...