The Fringe may have been in full swing but the opportunity
to take in this Samantha Crain show amongst the comedy, theatre and dance was
far too good to miss. The annual trip to the greatest arts festival on earth
occasionally throws up the odd show reflecting Americana heritage but, while
Samantha’s gig at the Electric Circus was outside the formal promotion of the
Fringe, her performance was a worthy addition to the overspill of talent
thronging every corner of Edinburgh’s contemporary and historic crevices.
Although on my horizon for a while, the music of Samantha
Crain truly entered the domain of this reviewer with a set at this year’s
Cambridge Folk Festival and it leapt up several more notches after this
extended solo show. The easiest way to describe the music of Samantha is to mix
the styles of Mary Gauthier and Lucinda Williams into a melting pot, add the
zest of youth and fine tune the product with a dose of prime Oklahoma song
writing talent. Quite simply Samantha strains every sinew of soul in the self-penned
songs which reflect well her perceptive lyrical output and all projected
majestically with cultivated pickin’ skills.
The experience gained from a series of album releases and no
doubt countless shows has helped develop the story telling skills of 28 year
old Samantha and this evening we were treated to a host of background tales
bringing the songs to life. Whether paying tribute to the late Jason Molina
with ‘For the Miner’, playfully
conspiring a little Taylor Swift irony on ‘Never
Going Back’ or playing syllable games with rival cities in titling ‘Devils in Boston’, the majority of
tracks forming this hour long set were decorated with enticing insights.
Samantha later humorously commented that ‘she should vet her
support artists more thoroughly in future as they were in danger of being too
good’. The irony in this statement is that Samantha herself hits the road later
in the year as the opening artist for the US shows of Swedish alt-folk
trailblazers First Aid Kit. Inevitably she will probably continue to focus on
songs from her latest album KID FACE such as numbers featured this evening
including ‘Churchill’ and ‘Somewhere All the Time’. However there
is surely a place for the standout song from Samantha’s time on stage and the
brief outbreak of kindly requested audience participation on ‘Songs in the Night’.
The joy of seeing Samantha Crain live primarily lies in the
depth of her warm expressive vocals which act as an evocative median in
conveying her thoughts. The guitar gremlins which hindered her Cambridge set
did not surface at this evening’s Edinburgh gig, although it was noted at the
time in how well she dealt with the amplification issues. This is probably what
you would expect from an artist so adept at excelling in the art of song, and
performing right in the heart of the final week of the annual Edinburgh Fringe
Festival was a fitting platform for someone treading the golden path of
Oklahoma song writing.
www.samanthacrain.com
www.samanthacrain.com
