Carter Sampson – Lucky
Reviewed by: Montana Sullivan
Despite growing up in Oklahoma, I never took my time to listen to country music and develop as
acute of an ear for its intricacies as many others I know have. So when I listened to Carter
Sampson’s Lucky, I listened to it on a stance of musicality and admired it purely on that basis.
Sampson has a voice with the Southern quality many country listeners ache for, and she has a
style that I really found pleasing – some of the songs are covers, but it blends so well into her
repertoire that it isn’t a break from the feel of the rest of the album. There are the country
influences in many places throughout the songs, particularly in the production (“Lucky”, the title
track, is laden with the guitar slides and chord structure emblematic of country style) and the
lyrics (“Peaches”, “Wild Ride” and “Queen of the Silver” come to mind on the lyric front). “Ten
Penny Nail” is the most classic-sounding country song on the album, with an opening straight
out of a Western desert scene.
But what stood out to me was the subtle modernity peppered throughout some of the tracks,
intentional or not. “All I Got”, one of my favorites on the album, incorporates an electric piano in
its lead, which is an amazing production choice – even if Sampson later sings about “being a
better man”, which, even through it rhymes, does sound strange coming from a female singer.
Even though I’m not the biggest country music fan, I enjoyed the album, and highly recommend
it to fans of country music and those looking for a bit of a shake-up from the norm. If I can
appreciate it without being as in-touch with the genre, it’s sure to be a welcome listen for those
with a better-suited ear.
