Schoolkids Records (Retail & Label)

Chris Stamey locates and restores album by regionally renowned guitarist and mentor

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — In Winston-Salem, N.C., guitarist Sam Moss is a legend. A superior, highly versatile musician whose advocacy for the blues and mastery of the nuances of electric blues-based soloing somewhat paralleled Mike Bloomfield’s in Chicago, Moss was an inspiring, charismatic mentor to generations of North Carolina rockers, including Let’s Active and The dB’s.

He was a larger-than-life character whose club appearances astounded local audiences, yet he never released a record in his lifetime. So, producer Chris Stamey was thrilled to discover, in 2020, on the end of an old tape, forgotten masters of Blues Approved, a spectacular Stax- and Muscle Shoals influenced solo record, made with Mitch Easter in 1977. This “great lost” record reveals that Moss was also a soulful songwriter and singer. It has now been carefully remixed and produced for release, with a deluxe booklet featuring detailed liner notes and bio, session notes by Easter, and lots of vivid color photos. Peter Holsapple (The dB’s) says, “Sam Moss was an inspiration to so many of us; with the release of Blues Approved, people everywhere will understand why.”

Blues Approved will be released on CD and digitally by Schoolkids Records on January 28, 2022, with a vinyl edition to follow in the summer.

Moss had made the first of several trips to nearby Chapel Hill to record his own original compositions in early 1977, with old friend Easter on drums (and recording). Mitch recalls: “In my house I had a ‘studio,’ meaning a Teac 2340 four-track recorder, three or four humble microphones, and for monitoring, the home stereo system. For extra-fancy sessions, I’d rent a Tapco six-channel mixer … Sam came down with two or three guitars, his Fender Twin. I played drums and Sam played everything else. And it was a really good session! Sam wrote interesting songs that almost always had a blues angle, but he brought in a lot of elements from elsewhere. He was pleased with the results, so we met a couple more times that year and recorded an LP’s worth of songs.” But the material then sat on the shelf, unreleased, as Moss opened a vintage guitar store, selling internationally to rock stars and other celebrities for several decades.

Stamey felt that most of the material seemed fully formed on its own, despite the limited recording options then available, but for a few tracks — the openers “Rooster Blood” and “King of My Hill,” and the Stonesy “Vida Blanche” — he enlisted the help of the Uptown Horns’ leader Crispin Cioe, a veteran of Rolling Stones tours whose Southern-fried additions on sax fit the material like a glove.

Later tracks, covers recorded with Henry Heidtmann and Jay Johnson in Winston in the early 90s, especially captivate. A rendition of “Ain’t That Peculiar” with Mike “Wezo” Wesolowski's harp and Henry’s nimble bass and keys playing; the pair also shine on Michael Bloomfield’s “If You See My Baby.” The CD closes with three "bonus tracks," also from these later sessions: exciting takes on "Pleasant Valley Sunday" (Monkees), "Can't Get Used to Losing You" (instrumental), and a collector's-fave Rolling Stones song "Who's Driving Your Plane?"

Contemporary technology was used to reassemble the various generations of four-track tapes into first-generation sources, peeling back the layers to put the listener back in the room where it happened. The mono closing track, featuring a teenage Moss in his first band singing Buck Owens’s “Act Naturally” in rehearsal, was too cool not to include. The CD has three additional surprises from early-’90s sessions at Turtle Tapes in Winston-Salem: the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” an instrumental of Pomus and Shuman’s “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” and the Stones’ “Who’s Driving Your Plane?”

Easter: “I had a pretty good memory of this material, but when I actually heard it again, I was delighted that it really is great. Sam was always strangely unconcerned about stardom, but he was a star anyway. When you play the record, you'll see what I mean.” On July 30, 2021, the City of Winston-Salem honored Moss with a sidewalk star in the city’s Walk of Fame downtown. Original sessions produced by Sam Moss; produced and mixed for Release by Chris Stamey (with input from Gene Holder and Mitch Easter) at Modern Recording (Chapel Hill, N.C.)