Sam Evian - You, Forever

Sam Evian, known to his parents as Sam Owens, is yet another musician who has what is called a day job. Some of those jobs are far fetched from music, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner used to do lay parquet floors around Nashville, but Owens, or should I say Evian has a day job in a recording studio!

So not only is he close to music all day long, he has the possibility to pull all the stops in the studio and use all that trickery some other musicians, particularly aspiring ones, would have to pay a lot of money for. You would naturally expect that his second album You, Forever be filled with sleek production tricks and wizardry, right? Wrong. That is why the music, the sound of this album are much better for it. Evian actually went to his parents' house with a rented four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder and closed himself with the four backing musicians to record You, Forever. For those that don’t remember or don’t even know what these machines look like, they don’t allow you to do any overdubbing, everything you record has to be ‘live’ (more or less). Evian also decided to exclude all the modern gadgets, like the tuning pedals. Do it ‘by ear’, and hit it. Or not.

And Evian and the band hit it. First of all, the music Evian makes is perfectly suited for that late Sixties/early Seventies sound that goes from Buffalo Springfield to Stephen Stills Manassas/solo records (even though Evian’s vocals are in a different range) that covers the softer rock, soul, country cocktails that seem to be regaining their popularity these days.

On the evidence of Evian’s album, it definitely should. Evian came up with a not rushed, relaxed sound, that seems warm at the edges, like that produced by the vacuum tube hi-fi gear, such music might be played in that era (best example, “Next To You”). The playing is outstanding throughout, as are the vocals, particularly occasional harmonies (“Health Machine”).

You, Forever has such an easy, natural flow that one of the songs and its title are perfectly fit to describe the whole album - “Summer Day”. I don’t know if this album will be on anybody’s ‘best of the year’ lists, but I’m sure that a lot of people will be listening to it while they are making those lists during cold winter days.