Taken from his latest album Salt River, Sam Amidon, accompanied by Chris Vatalaro on drums and synth, delivered an excellent rendition of Lou Reed’s ‘Big Sky‘ on the BBC’s Later… With Jools Holland. Halfway through the performance, he downed the guitar and picked up his fiddle…and, accompanied by Vatalaro’s hand-percussion, they killed it. Hugely entertaining.
In his review of the album, Danny Neill said of the album track:
Then there is Lou Reed’s Big Sky, once a fist-pumping rocker that closed out Reed’s Ecstasy album but brilliantly re-imagined here by Sam as a simple, slightly forlorn folk ballad. In fact, so thoroughly does he deconstruct it that it almost feels like an entirely different song. But right there in a flash is the essence of Sam Amidon. Always alive to the possibilities within music, looking for ways to cook up an exciting new flavour, searching for connections where no obvious pathways can be seen.
The song was one of three covers from Salt River, and in an interview with KLOF Mag, Amidon shared this on Big Sky:
I heard the lyrics, and it struck me that when you hear the song, you’re hearing it in the context of Lou’s personality but actually if you look at just the words of that song, it is like a folk song. “Big sky, holding up the sun” almost sounds like a children’s song. There are more ominous verses, but I didn’t use all of the verses of the song. I exacerbated that folk-like quality in the verses I decided to sing. The repetitive structure of the lyrics is also very folk-like; I just felt that for all his New York edge, he was trying to give us a very simple, beautiful message.
Don’t miss the opportunity to catch Sam live in the UK this month, followed by a North American Tour in June (details below).
Sam has a North American Tour next month and a few more UK dates this month:
Upcoming UK Dates
May 21 – Stone Nest, London (Sold Out)
May 22 – Stone Nest, London (Sold Out)
May 23 – Bristol Beacon, Bristol
May 24 – Hallé at St Michael’s, Manchester
May 27 – Cambridge Junction, Cambridge
North American Tour June 2025
June 19 – Arts at The Armory, Cambridge MA
June 21 – Petit Campus, Montreal QC
June 23 – The Great Hall, Toronto ON
June 27 – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago IL
June 29 – The Parkway Theater, Minneapolis MN
Tickets: https://www.samamidon.com/