Borrowed&Blue - Les Sampou

Les revisits her roots and performs sixteen country blues songs, originals as well as classics by Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt and many others, accompanying herself on her steel-string and slide guitar. The sound quality is outstanding--the guitar is big and rich and it's as if you're in the room with her. The performances are all top notch, truly flawless! Every nuance of every guitar bend and vocal dynamic is heard. And the repertoire is just great-- upbeat blues, slide guitar, ragtime, ballads, and a brand new song of Les's called &Lorraine". As Boston Globe critic 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."

audio clips

credits

Produced by Les Sampou
Recorded and Mixed by JP Jones
Recorded live at JP's house, Newport, RI
Mastered by David Correia, Celebration Sounds, Warren, RI
Cover photo by Jodi Sussman
Back cover photo by Les (dune shack in Provincetown)
Graphic Design by Joe Miele

thanks

Thanks to JP Jones for his commitment and talent; to Joe Miele for his years of friendship, generosity, and dedication; to Eric for his inspiration; to Pam and the staff at Fishman Transducers (www.fishman.com) for their excellent equipment I've used and abused over the years; and to all the DJs and press people who support my music.
This album is dedicated to all the people who come to my shows and collect my CDs.

notes

This album took six days to record... not exactly Genesis, but a creation that I've been mulling over for some time and one that many folks have been asking me to do for about a decade. So, in that sense, Borrowed & Blue is a somewhat monumental achievement on my part, albeit, it all happened pretty spontaneously. I approached JP Jones after hearing one of his remarkable CDs (www.jpjones.net), loved his sound, and asked him where he recorded it. He said in his room. We agreed to give my live performance idea a try and we set up a chair and two mics upstairs in a spare bedroom. I'd drive down to Rhode Island each day and play for a couple of hours. He'd say, "We're rolling," at appropriate moments, or, "Would you like some tea?" and once in a while, with emphasis, "This is gonna be a great album," and that was about it.

I don't know if this constitutes a "great album" or not, but I can say that it's as honest as I get. I don't claim to be a blues scholar, or a technician of blues guitar licks. I don't know birth dates of any of these artists or even if it's Delta vs. Memphis vs. Piedmont, or whatever the variations geography lends to historic interpretation of music. (I do seem to pick bluesmen who are either blind or from Mississippi, but that's either a coincidence or compulsive.) I play with no effort to be like, or sound like the people who wrote them, other than using my heart and soul – as little and white as they are. But I do know one thing... that the Blues is a tradition and its due respect is to understand this: It's music that comes from sorrow, anger, despair, and all the woes of being human, but the beautiful and ironic thing is you can't help but dance to it.

Les

track notes

Lorraine (Les Sampou, ASCAP)
I was staying in one of the dune shacks in Provincetown in order to ponder and write, write and ponder. For the first four days and nights it poured rain non-stop. There were no creature comforts like electricity or running water (except outside), and I had severe writer's block. This song finally emerged like a drowned but welcomed rat.
Kokomo Blues (Mississippi Fred McDowell, BMI)
I first heard this song done by Bonnie Raitt when I was fourteen. I later went searching for McDowell's version. I play it in open G capo'd on the 5th or 6th fret, which makes it tough to do the slide without sounding too wimpy, so I don't recommend it.
Big Road Blues (Tommy Johnson, ASCAP)
I enjoy Johnson's macho bravado in this song. At every twist and turn in the big road of life, he's giving his woman a chance to be with him, but he's quick to say, "If you don't want me baby, why don't you tell me; It ain't like I'm a man who ain't got no place to go." I like to sing it from the female side... touché.
Farewell to You Baby (Carl Martin)
Elijah Wald (www.elijahwald.com) taught me this one at a time in my life when I was leaving someone who deserved to be left; when I found this song I knew I couldn't write one any more apropos.
Meet Me in the Morning (Bob Dylan, ASCAP)
I was cooking spaghetti sauce in my kitchen when I heard this song on the CD version I bought to replace my old Blood on the Tracks vinyl. It was like I had never heard it before. So I hit "repeat" until the pasta was done and pretty much learned the song before supper ended.
Chinatown (Les Sampou, ASCAP)
Like the graphic detail in songs like Traveling Riverside Blues, I picked images that were visual – like dogs dragging their broken chains, howling moons, trains and alleyways – to create a desperate, lust-driven feeling because of love gone wrong and gone away.
Statesboro Blues (Blind Willie McTell, BMI)
Probably my favorite country blues song as far as guitar playing goes. It is just so much fun to play. It even gets folk audiences to tap their feet.
It Won't Be You (Bessie Smith, ASCAP)
The perfect revenge song. I should know... just listen to my last CD.

Boogaloo Down La Rue (Unknown)
"La Rue" means the road in French, I believe. "Boogaloo" is probably the author's way of saying let's boogie on down this road... but I could be all wrong. If I am, don't burst my bubble. Every time I play this I am sauntering down some street in Paris and I'm feeling fine. Anyhow, Paul Rishell (www.paulandannie.com) taught me this one too many years ago to remember who wrote it, and we concur that we don't know where the hell it came from.
You Are My Sunshine (Jimmie Davis & Charles Mitchell, ASCAP)
I remember learning this as a little girl and singing it in a very upbeat sing-song way. But if you listen to the words, there's nothing happy about it.
Richland Women Blues (Mississippi John Hurt, BMI)
I just love this woman he's singing about. I wish I were her. She is so alive. She eats men up and spits them out and they'd still follow her anywhere.
Traveling Riverside Blues (Robert Johnson, ASCAP)
Even though Johnson does it with a slide, Paul Rishell's version was fingers only, and I learned it as such. I hear this song as part of Johnson's general daily conversation and life. "If your man gets busted, girl, want you to have some fun..." The details down to the gold in her teeth, the barrel house, the women he's got all over the south (She got a mortgage on my body... and a lien on my soul) makes this song its own little movie.
Sweet Perfume (Les Sampou, ASCAP)
A happy love song, with the caveat that love could easily go "out of tune" if you aren't careful to be romantic and adoring often. I tell my darling husband that every day, but he doesn't seem too worried.
Police Dog Blues (Blind Blake, BMI)
My favorite Blind Blake song. I was so in love with a guy once when I was young that I "bothered 'round his house at night," trying to get his attention by tossing pebbles at his window. He didn't have a police dog, but I bet he wished he did.
Weather Vane (Les Sampou, ASCAP)
A song about a man whose moods change with the wind. A few years after writing this song, it occurred to me that its ending is rather dysfunctional in its point, that well, at least he doesn't leave home despite all his crazy behavior... but I still like to sing it. I just shouldn't think about it too much.
Holy Land (Les Sampou, ASCAP)
This song started out in a trailer park. There were all different types of people who lived there – some who had lived there for generations and some who pulled in overnight. There was one particular place that was real run down and had this front porch that was half-falling off. The mother was out there smoking cigarettes and there was a little girl there. I pictured how it might be when she grew up and when she fell in love and when she didn't go away, but stayed there and inherited that legacy.

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