Amelia White and Carter Sampson Live at South Main Sounds!

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Saturday, Feb 17, 2024  7pm - 9pm

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About Amelia:
“All I wanna do is get up there and sing.
I don’t wanna hear about ice on the wing.”
And there you have the greatest couplet in history that encapsulates a musicians’ road life. The hazards, fatigue, poverty, all that’s endured just so you can get up in front of people and play your songs. The icy-wing tale “Get to the Show” is a nicely loose rocking paean to the job as a troubadour. “No matter where you are, there’s always somewhere else to go.”, she sings, and she nails it.
Her extraordinary new release “Love I Swore” coming out on 31 Tigers FEB of 2024 is both bracing and sweet. The songs crafted meticulously by producer (and performer in her own right) Kim Richey, who brings out musicality and copious golden backing vocals. The record is like a quilt in which every square sewn on is a variation from the one next to it. There is some rock and roll, some catchy pop, good country and also a brooding intensity when such is called for.
On “Love I Swore”, whether Amelia White lyrically deals with loneliness, bears deep down about relationships, learns how love is hard work, gives the middle finger to the soul-sucking marriage-killing road life, there is a tongue wedged ever so slightly into her cheek and the record is leavened with lots of simple happiness itself and pure love with no agenda. The partnership with Kim has turned out a record so tuneful, so damn catchy, it’s a war story where joy wins out. With Kim Richey’s forte in vocal harmonies and her extensive knowledge of the structures of what makes a great song, Amelia was fertile ground and Kim worked a mean plow. Without a compromise of Amelia’s honest integrity, “Love I Swore” is, dare say it, accessible. Non-Americana civilians might even warm to this one. Dare to dream.
“It’s funny,” Amelia says, “but for me, I’ve been in a long relationship, and I wrote this record in a period where I thought I was going to lose that relationship. So, there’s that theme, keeping love going when you’re having to re-meet each other every time I return home. I have this great idea, halfway houses where partners can come over and visit us traveling musicians in there and as we get reacquainted with real life.”
Kim says, “Roger Nichols engineered it, and is a major part of the whole record. We made the record in Roger’s studio, which is about as big as somebody’s living room, with one isolation booth. We were jam packed in there. There’s one booth, so we had the drums in there, and all the rest of us were sitting in the control room with roger. it was cozy.” She laughs.
“We went through a whole bunch and decided which songs for the record,” Kim says, “and I think that’s Amelia’s strongest thing is the songwriting. It wasn’t done quickly. A lot of hours were put into the record, especially with Roger and I. And Amelia was really amenable to reworking the songs if we needed to.” They also had some great musicians to goose along such proceedings: Doug Lancio on guitar, Mark Pisapia on drums, Billy Harvey on bass and Amelia cutting loose with her own acoustic and electric guitars.
Choice tunes abound, but to single some out we can go with “Beautiful Dream” which sounds like one and coins the musician’s motto, “It’s hard to wake up to the setting sun.” The captivating jangle of a mandolin and guitar with gorgeous voices of “Don’t You Ever Forget”, the murky minor-key title track that would fit comfortably alongside Dylan’s “Time Out of Mind” until it explodes into rocking deliciousness halfway through. “Time”co-written with Mando Saenz is arpeggiated deliciousness about a “bird on a wing with x-ray eyes.”
No teenage starlet, Amelia shouldered her guitar in Boston for years, then Seattle, and now in East Nashville, where she’s been in the trenches for a good many years. Google “paid her dues” and there she is, with her reddish-brown shoulder length locks, eyeglasses and a smile. Then the unthinkable happened – her 2019 record “Rhythm of the Rain” actually stuck to the wall, doing well in the charts and spring-boarding Amelia from playing Tuesday nights for tips to actually headlining venues and god forbid getting somewhere! It couldn’t happen to a better artist, and one listen to “Love I Swore” will be a very convincing listen to one of America’s great “new” singer-songwriters. She just wants to get up and sing and she couldn’t care less about any ice on the wing."

About Carter:
Carter Sampson is an Okie-born singer/songwriter with a big voice.
The Oklahoma City-based artist is blessed by a musical family legacy that includes talents like Roy Orbison.
Her journey as a naturally independent, free-spirited musician has seemed almost predestined at times. At age 15 she began experimenting with sound as a way to pass the time; now her creativity has matured into the dedicated and passionate performance that makes her a favorite female vocalist.
“I’m pretty much the same me working on the same goals … maybe a little more grown up. I think I am more confident than I was when I first started playing. I’ve always been brave, but I’m more sure of myself now,” Sampson exuded.
As a relatable artist, her empowering music appeals to a wide range of folks, who are incredibly and admirably loyal to her and her work. She’s the founder and director of Oklahoma City’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, which always partners with nonprofit organizations that empower girls and women through music education.
The inspiring artist also averages about 220 shows annually – in areas like Oklahoma and Arkansas, as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. But as the self-penned ‘Queen of Oklahoma,’ Sampson’s red boots are happiest when they’re on her home turf.
“I am proud to be from Oklahoma and really proud of the music that is coming out of the state right now. I wish we were more progressive in a lot of areas, but it feels like slowly change is happening.”
Though she travels for the love of making music, she’s no stranger to awards. She was named a Top 12 Finalist in the 2012 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest and performed at Lincoln Center in New York. This year, she won first place in the general category of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. – with her song “Wild Bird”, which was additionally released by Pinecastle Records.
She also won fourth place in the Colorado-based Telluride Troubadour Contest at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and was a Top 10 Finalist in the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival’s Songwriters Showcase in Lyons, Colo.
Her third album, Good for the Meantime, was released in 2008. Then in 2011, she launched a Kickstarter project for Mockingbird Sing, in which she gave supporters rewards to help secure adequate funds within 30 days. After that huge success, she recorded a five-track acoustic EP, Thirty Three, at Treelady Studios in Pittsburgh/Turtle Creek, Penn.
“I feel like I am right where I am supposed to be doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing,” Sampson said, reflecting on the long road that led to right now.
Her fourth full-length studio album, Wilder Side, was released on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. Like Good for the Meantime it features the heady handywork of producer/multi-instrumentalist Travis Linville, who, like Sampson, has a unique sound all his own.
“I loved working with Linville on Good for the Meantime; he was so laid back, encouraging and fun to be around. I’d been thinking about asking him to engineer my new project, and when I heard his last EP (Sun and Moon) I knew I wanted him to help me with it (Wilder Side). I love the dreamy feel that EP has and there’s a lot of that on Wilder Side,” Sampson said.