Samantha Crain: Music, Poetry and Stolen Gear

Choctaw singer-songwriter Samantha Crain chatted recently with Indian Country Today about her path as a musician, life on the road and her upcoming new album Kid Face. This week, Samantha's getting more press but for the sad news that her guitars have been stolen!

On November 16th, Samantha posted a plea on Craigslist that her two workhorse guitars, the ones she uses for touring, writing and recording, were stolen from her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma. For a musician, losing the tools of one's trade is heartbreaking much less a huge expense and threat to their livliehood.

"These are my life and blood" Samantha wrote in her post and her community was quick to respond with ways to support her. A donation campaign is now online to help raise funds to replace Samantha's Martin acoustic and Jagstang electric - check it out at donatesamanthacrain.blogspot.ca.

In happier news, Samantha Crain recently spoke with Vincent Schilling (host of Native Trailblazers) for Indian Country Today. In Singer-Songwriter Samantha Crain Talks Music, Poetry and Neil Young Samantha shared her now established career got started a bit by happenstance:

I started playing music as a means to travel, actually. I started this as an afterthought that I grew to love tremendously and found an identity. I started touring and writing when I was about 18 or 19. I didn’t take any time to hone it, I wasn’t one of those people who started playing really young and then it eventually turned into this. I naïvely jumped into it all at once.

I wrote six or seven songs and then I said I can go play these in a coffee shop wherever I want to go. that’s kind of how I started, I just started booking shows for myself all over the place or wherever I thought I might want to go spend some time and then I realized, “Well I should probably make a record so I have something to sell to the people while I’m playing there.” I said, “Well I guess you should probably write some more songs…” I learned about it as I was in the business.

I grew to love and appreciate the art of songwriting—that has become my main focus of it now. I still do a ton of touring, but songwriting is something that is super special to me and I love meeting other songwriters and hearing about the other ways they write songs.

When I was in college, I was a creative writing major. I studied poets and how there were all of these different movements and poetry. I feel like there is that same sort of thing and songwriting, it’s just not so cut and dry and talked about as much. I find the same thing in studying different songwriters in different areas of songwriting. I think there can be the same thing said about the movements there were for poetry and art.

Samantha goes on to reveal the poets she's been most influenced by, how her new album Kid Face represents a shift in her songwriting style, and why she just wants to be Neil Young. Read the complete interview here and be sure to check out the fundraiser to replace her instruments too.

Vincent Schilling's Book "Native Musicians in The Groove"

Vincent Schilling's book Native Musicians In The Groove focuses on the lives and accomplishments of Indigenous musicians.

St. Regis Mohawk music journalist Vincent Schilling is the host of Native Trailblazers - one of the most listened to Indigenous focused radio shows in Indian Country - and writer of a related series of books. The second book from that series, Native Americans In The Groove, pays homage to the Indigenous musicians he has come in contact with over the years.

Growing up in California, Vincent's love of literature and writing started at an early age in the library reading books when he wasn't playing at the beach. His path in media began at San Francisco State University where he studied broadcasting, theatre and science. Later he would be prompted by his loving wife to explore his talent for writing, and with the challenge of making a sustainable career as a writer, Vincent began his path in book writing.

His first publishing venture was to be an author of children s books until his publishing company approached him with the idea of writing about Indigenous people in the United States and Canada, which he was thrilled to do instead. The Native Trailblazers book series consists of five books that focus on Native women, men, athletes, activists and musicians.

Native Musicians In The Groove takes a look at the lives and accomplishments of ten Indigenous music artists: Crystal Shawanda, Gabriel Ayala, Leela Gilday, Michael Bucher, Blackfire, Shane Yellowbird, Mary Youngblood, Four Rivers Drum, Mato Nanji and Jamie Coon. The book was a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in 2010.

In addition to being an author and journalist (he's a regular contributor to Indian Country Today Media Network) Vincent is the manager of Cherokee singer-songwriter Michael Bucher, and host of the Native Trailblazers podcast on BlogTalkRadio - weekly in-depth and topical interviews with inspiring people from our community and where you can hear the RPM Download of the Week during the show every Friday at 7pm EST.

Get your copy of Native Musicians In The Groove from Native Voices: www.nativevoicesbooks.com/catalog/2.