Sam Shackleton has been subtly proving himself to be the real deal in terms of traditional folk song interpretation. It takes a competent musician to do justice to songs that were made to be sung and passed through generations; it takes an exceptional talent to truly inhabit the songs and breathe fresh life into them, as Sam Shackleton does. He has been ploughing away on the margins for five years or so now, releasing a debut album under his own label in 2022 that earned kudos for the authenticity of his approach and the stylistic echoes of artists like Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie. One look at the tone and templates of his releases reveals Sam to be a keen student of the early sixties’ folk revival; this is clearly a period wherein the attitude and approach to folk songs chimed with his own connection. He has dived deep into the era in every sense; even his sartorial presentation has that rolled-up shirt sleeves, field boots, and weathered jeans look seen all over the working men’s clubs of the time, before the longer hair and flowers took hold. There is one EP sleeve in particular where he seems to channel Ewan MacColl, brandishing a banjo as a pipe hangs from his mouth. But he has dived even deeper into his chosen form of expression, earning a master’s degree in Scottish Ethnology, specialising in folklore and ethnomusicology.
So, Sam knows what he is about when tackling the cowboy ballads and early folk songs heard on his latest release, Scottish Cowboy Ballads & Early American Folk Songs. However, there is a far more personal connection to this music for Sam as well, something detectable in the heart and feel he injects into every performance. Back in the summer of 2023, Sam tragically lost his father to suicide, naturally a devastating trauma for the singer, which understandably prompted a period where he took a long break from performing. Sam had busked with his father, Norman Shackleton, on the streets of Edinburgh, and many of the songs he interprets on this new album were numbers that they had once sung together. He has dedicated this record to his father’s memory and hopes that it will raise awareness of suicide and mental health issues. Knowing this, it is hard not to hear that extra layer of personal connection in these recordings; there is an aged crack in Sam’s singing voice, like a natural patina exposed when you take a saw to an aged piece of wood, but here it sounds, to these ears, like there is an extra layer of meaning. Many of the songs have lyrics that reference a father or a dad, so essentially, this is a singer tackling the repertoire with the purest and best intent, to extract and plug into the element of the songs that speak directly to him. That is the very same sense of purpose that Bob Dylan brought to the traditional music he re-shaped and cast to his own voice after arriving in Greenwich Village in 1961.
If anything, Shackleton is also doing what Dylan did, but slightly in reverse. By infusing the performances with a heavy dose of Scottish accent and attitude, Sam is wrestling music away from Guthrie’s dustbowl and re-dressing it in a seasoned tartan, aglow with heritage and proudly re-rooting it in an unmistakably Scottish soil. His success in capturing an intimacy to the tracks was undoubtedly helped by the independent recording situation, laying everything down at his own flat in Edinburgh. I warm to the music though, because Sam never falls into the bedroom trap that can befall others, whispering inwardly into a microphone as if too much exuberance or expression will disturb the neighbours. No, Sam’s busker experiences have clearly served him well because he records as if there were a crowd standing in front of him and their attention he will not release. The playing on guitar and banjo is packed with rhythm and energy, whilst the bursts of harmonica bring some abrasive extra texture to the overall sonic picture. The sixteen songs are all sewn together with a weathered unity; highlights are many, although I give special mention to Sweet Snowy North, Pretty Saro and East Virginia Blues as particularly fine pieces. And to close Scottish Cowboy Ballads & Early American Folk Songs with a yodelling song (Scots Yodel) leaves us on a high, hungry for more. In his career thus far, the biggest successes have come via viral performances on streaming sites; now, with another supremely well-constructed long player, he is laying down a marker with a more durable format. Sam Shackleton is keeping it alive and carrying it forward; we are fortunate to have him on today’s music scene.
Scottish Cowboy Ballads & Early American Folk Songs (Spetember 19th, 2025) Self Released
Order via: Sam’s website (vinyl/CD) | Bandcamp (Digital)
Tour Dates: https://www.samshackleton.com/gigs-shows