Sam Lewis

Sam Lewis, often labeled with some form of the word ‘soulful’, was once dubbed “a modern Townes Van Zandt” by Chris Stapleton. He’s discovered what most musicians spend lifetimes working for; the place where feel-good music meets vital social commentary. Lewis’ style meets at a juncture of many different genres and has led to collaborations with everyone, from Leon Russell to The Wood Brothers.

After spending a nomadic youth throughout the Southeast (USA), he began calling Nashville home in 2009. Since then he’s been joined on his journey by some of music’s most righteous and luminary figures. He has pressed the first few chapters in his career’s studio anthology with the release of his self-titled debut (2012). His sophomore release WAITING ON YOU (2015) features an impressive list of Nashville notables all placing their stamp on this enduring expression of un-compromised songwriting.

Billboard announced the highly anticipated third studio release third studio release LOVERSITY (2018) and landed Lewis a spot on Rolling Stone’s “10 New Artists to Watch” list, with writer Marissa Moss describing the album as, “… seventies psychedelic soul, with a storyteller’s eye, a swampy Southern groove and an emotional, political punch.” SOLO (released 2020) is a solo-acoustic album recorded at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville in front of a live audience that captures Lewis in his element. HARLEY KIMBRO LEWIS (2022) is a trans-Atlantic collaboration with England’s own Martin Harley and East Tennessee all-star Daniel Kimbro that features a collection of all original material recorded in Nashville. The long-awaited new studio album SUPERPOSITION (2024) irresistibly fuses Americana undertones to hazy dream-like melodies with psychedelic instrumental flourishes. Comprising eight atmospherically captivating originals alongside a compellingly unique take on Dire Straits’ ‘Walk of Life’.

Teaming back up with Joe V. McMahan who engineered and recorded Harley Kimbro Lewis (2022 transatlantic collaboration with Martin Harley and Daniel Kimbro) — Sam returned to Joe’s home studio in Nashville in January 2025 and performed over a dozen solo-acoustic originals for Joe who offered to produce the album also lending his many musical talents that span several instruments though quickly learning the bulk of the job would require a maximum amount of restraint to achieve the ‘sparseness’ goal set forth. The first thirty seconds of the album’s lead song (Chase the Moon) is a warm ethereal soundscape that feels like a continuation of his previous work, Superposition (2024), before it is peeled away like a piece of cellophane revealing an ultimate intimacy that properly sets the vibe of the entire album. There are lots of ‘firsts’ for Sam in these recordings including an instrumental track named after my cat (Lischey’s Retreat ‘lee-she’); a haunting duet (The Light) featuring world renowned recording artist Judy Blank; emotional string arrangement on the title track (Everything’s Fine); some sonic liberties were taken during the process such as the use of an Optigan and it’s multiple manic-melodic loops on My Life Living Me and his wife’s late grandmother’s Omnichord kicking off Old Love and holding down the synthesized low end throughout the track. The album comes to a sobering close with a solo performance of a song Sam wishes he had written – Three County Highway by the Indigo Girls.

The album cover is a charcoal drawing by Rusty Barwick who’s work he adores, particularly this piece titled ‘Petwear’ that he purchased while making the album Everything’s Fine. Sam says “I feel very much like the man wearing welding glasses with an amphibian on his head who seems to be getting a little better view of things. Many different cultures believe frogs represent transformation, renewal, and adaptability. I find the album title and artwork properly represent this current body of work.”

All songs live under an umbrella titled, ‘Everything’s Fine’ which is kind of a blanket statement that Sam became obsessed with for its duality and its usage regarding both the micro or macro of life…maybe everything’s fine, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s ‘fine’ in the macro sense but not at all in the micro sense or vice versa. “I am definitely guilty of using it to define situations that are in fact NOT ‘fine’. We all have different thresholds of what may or may not be ‘fine’ but our unwillingness to accept discourse can lead to a further sense of disconnection if not properly addressed. ‘Everything’s Fine‘ is the most appropriate statement for the world I find myself living in at the moment.”

This impressive body of work has received critical acclaim and each session as grown with the legendary family for which he has adopted to curate and share his musical inner-vision with his listeners.

While each album has a distinct sound, they all circle back to one universal theme and certainly something you will hear Lewis preach to his audience, “we are all trying to get somewhere — all running from something or toward something; we’re all in it together, though.”