Top 100 – 2011 WUMB Countdown

The Top 100 favorite artists of WUMB listeners in 2011. “where musical roots are still growing” heard on 91.9FM Boston, Worcester, Falmouth, 91.7FM Newburyport, 1170AM Orleans.

#69 Danielle Miraglia
#88 Amy Black
#107 Les Sampou

“Back on the roots scene after a long break, Sampou never wavers from a
steady tone of genuineness as she sings sharply observant songs that she writes
about disarray and failed communication in relationships. She has the ability to
dramatize the sense of hurt at the heart of the characters without floundering in
self-pity or weak sentiment. Guitarists Kevin Barry and Mike Dinallo prove
important to the flow of her honky-tonk music.” Frank John Hadley,
DOWNBEAT

“’Lonesomeville’ evokes a Tom Waits-like world….” Sing Out Magazine

“Powerfully expressive, Les Sampou has been tested in the trenches of life and
survived brilliantly. Her new album, “Lonesomeville,” is a personal Top Ten
favorite of the year. She invests many songs with the emotional honesty of
Lucinda Williams, probing love in all of its complexity while belting the heck
out of the music. She has a passionate, rockabilly-blues edge that lifts your
spirits high, followed by ballads that dig into your soul like few artists can. She
also enlists some of Boston’s true all-stars to back her — including Andy
Plaisted, Kevin Barry, Michael Dinallo and Jimmy Ryan — to make this an
album you’ll want to revisit eagerly and often.”
— STEVE MORSE, longtime Boston Globe Correspondent who has also
contributed to Billboard and Rolling Stone

LES SAMPOU • Lonesomeville
“Sampou’s passionate vocals are simply stunning, now ballsy and rough-edged, then
purry and seductive, while the only problem with her originals songs is trying to decide
which is the least sensational—there are only nine of them, but there’s absolutely no
filler here…the title track is a veritable monster, but Oil & Water, Lonely Nights &
Lonely Days, My My My and As I Sleep are the kind of tracks that flummox DJs when
they have to choose just one. Judging by her close to home CD release ‘tour,’ Sampou
seems to be one of those World Famous In Boston acts we hear so little about, but if
you’ve given up on Lucinda Williams. I strongly suggest you check her out.” John
Conquest, 3rd Coast Music, Austin TX

JOHN CONQUEST/THIRD COAST MUSIC/ALBUM OF THE YEAR REVIEW/
SXSW
“You may have noticed that music writers and DJs commonly mark the New Year by
putting out or programming ‘Best Of’ lists or spotlight shows of the previous year’s
albums, and you may have noticed that the FAR reporters and I are no exceptions…
Looking at 2010’s offerings, I started off with 13 contenders for Album of the Year, so
right there I had a problem. OK, first off, a little tactical voting. Eilen Jewell’s Butcher
Holler; A Tribute To Loretta Lynn (Signature Sounds) and Blaze Foley’s Sittin’ By The

Road (Lost Art) were no-brainers for, respectively, #1 VA/Tribute Album and #1 Reissue/
Historic Album, which took care of them. Then Yvette Landry’s Should Have Known
(Soko) and Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers (SonicBoom) were both Debuts, so they
got the top spots in that category. Now things are looking a little better, I’m down to
nine, of which, reluctantly, I had to move New Mystery Girl ‘s Twist City (self) into
Debut as well, a bit of a technicality as Chrissy Flatt does have albums out under her own
name, but at least she got a #1 for Sally’s Rumble as Song of the Year. Now, there are
only two albums that have to go, but which two? Better way of looking at it, who
absolutely has to stay? Much easier: Sarah Borges’ Live Singles (self), Marti Brom’s Not
For Nothin’ (Goofin’ [Finland]/Ripsaw), Caleb Klauder’s Western Country
(Quicksilver), Carrie Rodriguez’s Love And Circumstance (Ninth Street Opus), Les
Sampou’s Lonesomeville (self) and Sally Spring’s Made Of Stars (Sniffinpip). Now
we’re getting somewhere, except for the really hard part, ranking them. I don’t know how
many combinations I tried out to see how they looked, though early on I abandoned
numbering because that was next door to meaningless, but eventually I hit on Sampou,
Borges, Brom, Spring, Rodriguez, Klauder and that seemed about right. So why Les
Sampou, who only made #2 in the FAR charts and #6 in FAR & Away? Actually,
there’s an easy answer. What swung it her way was that while I’d loaded a couple
three favorite songs from each of the other albums onto my iPod, I had
Lonesomeville almost in its entirety, because I couldn’t decide which, apart from
Sam & Alice, were the best tracks, and I was still listening to it when I didn’t have
to (music writers are like sharks, we have to keep moving forward, forever hunting
for fresh meat). This strongly suggested that, while its rivals were all extremely
good, Sampou’s album was, in my opinion at least, if not actually perfect, at least
within spitting distance of it. There are, I imagine, few artists who don’t think that
their latest album is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I came to find that it’s
actually quite difficult to discuss an album with an artist who already knows that
you think it was the best one to cross your desk in an entire year. However, Sampou
did shed some light on what made Lonesomeville so special. While she says of her
four previous releases, Sweet Perfume (self, 1994), Fall From Grace (Rounder,
1996), Les Sampou (Rounder, 1999) and Borrowed & Blue (self, 2006), “every
album is different,” one unifying theme in reviews of the first three (Borrowed &
Blue was solo blues covers) was admiration for Sampou’s songwriting. In my
original review (#163/252, August, 2010), I noted that while there were only nine
tracks, all originals, “Sampou seems to be a shrewd judge of her own material
(never a given with songwriters),” and, it turns out, she started out with 25 to 30
songs, paring them down to create an album with a theme, “The others were all
over the place. This time, I picked the nine songs that best complemented each
other.” Sampou also lavishes praise on colleagues such as JP Jones, who has co-
credit on the sinuous, mesmerizing title track. “I gave him the credit because he
suggested slowing it down, which was absolutely the right thing to do.” She also
lauds not just producer Chris Rival and the outstanding Boston musicians, notably
Kevin Barry (guitars) and Jimmy Ryan (mandolin), who backed her, but singles out
Ducky Carlisle, who mixed the album and helped her fine tune the vocals, to
stunning effect. “I’m extremely proud of it” is a fairly stock artist comment on a
new album, but when Les Sampou adds, “there’s a shine around it,” she gets no

argument from me, in fact I couldn’t have put it better myself. There was a time
when I was leery about inviting people I’d never seen to perform at 3CM Presents,
but this year I’ve thrown caution to the winds, because if Les Sampou (and Yvette
Landy and Zoe Muth) are half as good as they sound on their records, they’ll knock
our socks off. JC

You may have noticed that music writers and DJs commonly mark the New Year by putting out or programming ‘Best Of’ lists or spotlight shows of the previous year’s albums, and you may have noticed that the FAR reporters and I are no exceptions. It’s not just that new releases tend to get very thin on the ground round the turn of the year, it really is an opportunity to look back, take stock and reflect on which albums we chose to write about or play and to highlight some of them with a little extra ink or airplay.
I can, of course, only speak for myself, but the process of creating JC’s Best O’ starts with going through the previous year’s issues of 3CM and making preliminary lists. I’ve noticed with the FAR reporters that a few of them come up with albums they didn’t report to the monthly charts, which I assume means these are sleepers that snuck up on them gradually, but I keep it simple. If I didn’t review it, it doesn’t get considered. As I use the same format as the FAR & Away reports, these lists, which invariably start out rather longer, have to be cut down to six in the Album of the Year category, three in all the others. This is never easy.
Looking at 2010’s offerings, I started off with 13 contenders for Album of the Year, so right there I had a problem. OK, first off, a little tactical voting. Eilen Jewell’s Butcher Holler; A Tribute To Loretta Lynn (Signature Sounds) and Blaze Foley’s Sittin’ By The Road (Lost Art) were no-brainers for, respectively, #1 VA/Tribute Album and #1 Reissue/Historic Album, which took care of them. Then Yvette Landry’s Should Have Known (Soko) and Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers (SonicBoom) were both Debuts, so they got the top spots in that category. Now things are looking a little better, I’m down to nine, of which, reluctantly, I had to move New Mystery Girl ‘s Twist City (self) into Debut as well, a bit of a technicality as Chrissy Flatt does have albums out under her own name, but at least she got a #1 for Sally’s Rumble as Song of the Year.
Now, there are only two albums that have to go, but which two? Better way of looking at it, who absolutely has to stay? Much easier: Sarah Borges’ Live Singles (self), Marti Brom’s Not For Nothin’ (Goofin’ [Finland]/Ripsaw), Caleb Klauder’s Western Country (Quicksilver), Carrie Rodriguez’s Love And Circumstance (Ninth Street Opus), Les Sampou’s Lonesomeville (self) and Sally Spring’s Made Of Stars (Sniffinpip). Now we’re getting somewhere, except for the really hard part, ranking them. I don’t know how many combinations I tried out to see how they looked, though early on I abandoned numbering because that was next door to meaningless, but eventually I hit on Sampou, Borges, Brom, Spring, Rodriguez, Klauder and that seemed about right.
So why Les Sampou, who only made #2 in the FAR charts and #6 in FAR & Away? Actually, there’s an easy answer. What swung it her way was that while I’d loaded a couple three favorite songs from each of the other albums onto my iPod, I had Lonesomeville almost in its entirety, because I couldn’t decide which, apart from Sam & Alice, were the best tracks, and I was still listening to it when I didn’t have to (music writers are like sharks, we have to keep moving forward, forever hunting for fresh meat). This strongly suggested that, while its rivals were all extremely good, Sampou’s album was, in my opinion at least, if not actually perfect, at least within spitting distance of it.
There are, I imagine, few artists who don’t think that their latest album is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I came to find that it’s actually quite difficult to discuss an album with an artist who already knows that you think it was the best one to cross your desk in an entire year. However, Sampou did shed some light on what made Lonesomeville so special. While she says of her four previous releases, Sweet Perfume (self, 1994), Fall From Grace (Rounder, 1996), Les Sampou (Rounder, 1999) and Borrowed & Blue (self, 2006), “every album is different,” one unifying theme in reviews of the first three (Borrowed & Blue was solo blues covers) was admiration for Sampou’s songwriting. In my original review (#163/252, August, 2010), I noted that while there were only nine tracks, all originals, “Sampou seems to be a shrewd judge of her own material (never a given with songwriters),” and, it turns out, she started out with 25 to 30 songs, paring them down to create an album with a theme, “The others were all over the place. This time, I picked the nine songs that best complemented each other.”
Sampou also lavishes praise on colleagues such as JP Jones, who has co-credit on the sinuous, mesmerizing title track. “I gave him the credit because he suggested slowing it down, which was absolutely the right thing to do.” She also lauds not just producer Chris Rival and the outstanding Boston musicians, notably Kevin Barry (guitars) and Jimmy Ryan (mandolin), who backed her, but singles out Ducky Carlisle, who mixed the album and helped her fine tune the vocals, to stunning effect.
“I’m extremely proud of it” is a fairly stock artist comment on a new album, but when Les Sampou adds, “there’s a shine around it,” she gets no argument from me, in fact I couldn’t have put it better myself. There was a time when I was leery about inviting people I’d never seen to perform at 3CM Presents, but this year I’ve thrown caution to the winds, because if Les Sampou (and Yvette Landy and Zoe Muth) are half as good as they sound on their records, they’ll knock our socks off. JC

Les Sampouhas been invited to showcase at the South by Southwest’s 25th annual conference held in Austin Texas – March 2011 on the merit of her 20 plus year career in music and 2010 release “Lonesomeville”

Congratulations Les!!!

Know anyone in your area might enjoy this show? Simply send them this link!! http://www.trespassmusic.org/lesanddanielle

Les Sampou & Danielle Miraglia
Caffe Lena
47 Phila St, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
(518) 583-0022 Set: 7:30 PM
All Ages
For tickets call Brown Paper Tickets box office (open 24/7) at 1-800-838-3006 or Buy Now online.

Danielle Miraglia – See the Light

Les Sampou – Lonesomeville

Danielle Miraglia – You Don’t Know Nothin’

Les Sampou – Yo Yo

For more info about Danielle visit: www.daniellem.com

For more info about Les Sampou visit: www.lessampou.com

You can view the chart and read a blog about the FAR charts by Calvin Powers at
http://www.taprootradio.com/

Congratulations LES!

To learn more about the FAR Chart, visit http://www.tcmnradio.com/far/

Lonesomeville is being promoted to the FAR Charts by Trespass Music and to the Americana Charts by Al Moss Promotions