We’ve been enamored with troubadour Sam Baker ever since we first laid our ears on his superb 2013 Say Grace album, which found its way to No. 11 in our Top 15 Albums of 2013.  Baker mines a deep vein of storytelling songs featuring finely-crafted lyrics.  It’s a vein that’s been worked so well by similarly-slanted predecessors such as John Prine, Townes Van Zandt and Tom Waits.  Sam Baker easily fits into their good company.

For another good sample of this gifted songwriter, check out the performance below (from Boulder’s laudable eTown) of his telling song Odessa.  In addition to telling a heart-breaking story of a wasted life, Odessa deftly melds in Stephen Foster’s song Hard Times.  The song is off Baker’s highly-regarded 2007 album Pretty World.  Do yourselves a favor and give Sam Baker more of your listening time.  The song’s worthy lyrics follow at bottom.

“He was an Odessa boy with a daddy in the money
He played for mojo back in the boom
Drove a Corvette
Took what he wanted
People learned to give him lots of room

[Chorus]
Well he never learned to work
But that never really mattered
Cause the dark crude flowed
The wild oats scattered
Dark crude flowed
He fought, he flattered
And he got what he wanted
It was the only thing that mattered

Well life was easy
The big jacks pumped
Pulling cash from the permian field
Cabinets full of high-grade scotch
Garage full of high-speed steel

[Chorus]

Then he killed a girl when he rolled the Corvette
Daddy’s money made her lawyers go away
His mother bought vodka with all that cash
She kind of knew
Yeah she kind of knew

Well he’s an old man now
lives on his dead Daddy’s place
Never took a wife
He’s gonna die without a trace
See he loved the girl who was penned in the ‘vette
He talks to her everyday
Her face was blood and diamonds
He remembers her that way.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
There’s a pale droopy maiden who toiled her life away
With a worn heart, whose better days are o’er.
Though her voice it would be merry, ’tis sighin’ all the day,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.”