Carter Sampson - Lucky (2018)

Back in the 1990s when The Simpsons was funny – honest, kids, it really was – there was an episode where Homer ended up at the Lollapalooza music festival (which I didn’t know still ran until I Googled it for this review – see, you learn every day!) and ends up talking to Billy Corgan, eventually he says to the Smashing Pumpkins singer: “You know, my kids think you’re the greatest. And thanks to your gloomy music, they’ve finally stopped dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide.”

But if right from the moment Elvis turned up on Ed Sullivan and shook his hips, to the sounds of punk to Marilyn Manson, through to the moment where Kurt loaded up his guns and brought his friends (I don’t have a more contemporary reference, what do kids listen to these days?) music has been about rebellion, then no one told Carter Sampson.

Indeed, if this was a one-word review rather than a 600 word one, then really it just needs to say: content.

Right from the title track which starts this, the air is one of warmth and happiness. “I got a pretty cool mama, and I got a pretty cool dad” is not angst-filled, and neither should it be. Similarly, the second track, a gorgeous ballad, with some wonderful steel guitar, sums up the whole ethos of the record: “I guess you don’t need much,” she offers, “when you’ve got everything.”

The music here is as simple as that spirit. Timeless and laid back, original yet comfortingly familiar, “Peaches” reflects on happy childhood times, over a brilliantly picked out musical bed, but there is no bitterness even here: “things are pretty good right now” sings Sampson, as if she can’t quite believe, well, how lucky she is, before adding: “but they were better back then.”

She is a fine songwriter too, but also a gifted storyteller. “Ten Penny Nail” adds a bluesy soul – and she sounds just a little like Sheryl Crow – as it sorts through the love triangle between Guy Clark Susannah Clark and Townes Van Zandt (Sampson revealed the subject matter last week on stage) and ends up being a real highlight.

“All I Got”, which is shot through with a stoicism that isn’t around elsewhere, would be a smash on all the country charts, but you suspect that’s not what Sampson is about, “Wild Ride” (opening line, “I like Whiskey, I like wine, I like your loving most of the time”) is – you guess – more personal than some of the others, certainly more so than the superb “Rattlesnake Kate”. Another yarn from the dirt roads, about a woman who cheerfully killed hundreds of snakes to preserve her own life and then wore their rattles as a necklace and a snakeskin dress to town – although you could argue that Sampson is imbued with the same spirit.

For the first time in her career, Sampson has added some she didn’t write to this album. One “Hello Darlin’” is just lovely – there is no better word – “Tulsa” is an homage to her home state of Oklahoma, but with a real swing and nose for trouble (to wit: maybe someday I’ll quit my drinking, but let’s be real, that ain’t gonna happen soon”) and perhaps the best way to get a handle on this is the way she owns Queen Of The Silver Dollar.” Covered by many, it has rarely sounded as good as here.

The reason for that, maybe, is the same reason as to why “Lucky” as a whole is so very, very good. She had, she said onstage, heard the song as a girl and her mum used to dance around to it. This music is clearly in her blood, Carter Sampson is just skilled enough to channel it and make it hers. Hardly ever has a record sounded as happy in its own skin – and for that we are all the lucky ones.

Rating 9/10