BELLOWS FALLS — “Life is a gift,” Sam Baker says. “Gratitude for what remains is more helpful than resentment for what was lost. Ultimately, I came to understand that these days are wicked short and terribly beautiful. All I've got is this one breath, and if I'm lucky, I get another.”
Four albums into a career that was ignited by a tragic event in a foreign land, it is life and its precious value that carries Baker's songs and art, according to a news release. Baker will perform at the Windham Ballroom on Saturday, May 14, at 8:30 p.m.
His story includes surviving a terrorist bombing on a bus bound for Machu Picchu, Peru, in 1986. Most of the passengers were killed, including the German family he had befriended.
His injuries required him to relearn how to walk, move, and speak. Many years and over 15 operations later, the new Sam Baker sees beauty in everything around him and expresses his new-found life every day, sometimes with paint and canvas, a camera, or a guitar and a song.
Baker released his first record, Mercy, in 2004, the first in a trilogy of song paintings with sparse instrumentation and poetic delivery. It was followed by Pretty World in 2007, and Cotton in 2009. His latest release, Say Grace, was named one of the Top Ten Country Albums of 2013 by Rolling Stone magazine.
He told The Wall Street Journal - which called him the “Bard of the Workaday World” - “I'm the dullest source of material there is. The world is fascinating, charming; it's an endless sea of goodness and terror and evil. All I've got to do as a writer is walk around and not look at my shoes.”
He is traveling with fellow Texan Carrie Elkin, who helps out with vocals and rays of sunlight and is often called a force of nature, the news release says. This is the second trip to Bellows Falls for Baker and Elkin. In 2015, he offered a riveting performance at Roots on the River.