Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar
Toronto - Ontario - Canada
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About the Band
With the worldwide pandemic wrecking utter havoc upon the careers of many musicians, Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar elected to use their time off the road to record, mix and master their latest tour-de-force, the astonishingly powerful, funky and deeply soulful The Reckless One.
The follow up to 2018’s Juno-nominated Run To Me, The Reckless One represents another massive step forward for Samantha Martin as a songwriter, singer, arranger and band leader. Eleven of the album’s twelve songs were either co-written or solely composed by the multi-talented, multi-faceted artist. The one non-original, a funk infused cover of Bob Dylan’s “Meet Me in the Morning,” fuses Dylan’s lyric in a cataclysmic clash with the sensibilities of the Meters and the hurricane force of Howlin’ Wolf and Tina Turner at their rawest. It simply has to be heard to be believed.
Produced by Darcy Yates and Renan Yildizdogan, The Reckless One demonstrably builds on the strengths of Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar’s last album. Martin’s lyrics, set to a panoply of intoxicating, ear worm melodies, tend to focus on the vicissitudes of love: desire, disappointment and, when everything works out, emotional and sexual satisfaction. The album’s twelve tracks cover a lot of ground, including 12/8 gospel infused soul ballads such as “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “Better to Have Never,” funk inflected tracks like “Love is All Around,” stomping four-on-the-floor dance numbers epitomized by “Don’t Have To Be” and the Wall of Sound influenced “Sacrifice.” Over the course of the album the discerning listener will detect a panoply of influences ranging from Mavis Staples, Sharon Jones and Otis Redding to Booker T. and the MG’s and the Memphis Horns. One track, “All That I Am,” is even slightly reminiscent of early 70s Emotions.
Martin’s first recording was an EP entitled Fade, issued in 2004. A year later she moved to Toronto and in 2008 released her debut full length album, Back Home. The eponymously titled Samantha Martin & The Haggard followed in 2012 before Martin decided to form the gospel and soul-based Delta Sugar.
Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar’s debut release, 2015’s Send the Nightingale, was a stripped-down affair consisting of Martin, her two co-singers, and two guitars. For 2018’s Run to Me, Martin elected to record her emotionally wrought material with an expanded band, augmenting the core of Delta Sugar’s gospel-infused harmonies with a full rhythm section, piano, organ and an ever-so-soulful horn section. The Reckless One continues in the same trajectory, further expanding the palate of sounds with vibes, mellotron, Wurlitzer, Hammond and Farfisa organs plus strings.
Send the Nightingale was a stunning achievement which garnered four Maple Blues nominations in 2016, was regularly featured on the CBC, topped the blues charts on Stingray radio and propelled the group onto the stages of all the major Canadian festivals and clubs coast to coast. Subsequent to the album’s release, Martin was nominated three years in a row as Female Vocalist of the Year at the Maple Blues Awards. Continuing to build on the group’s steam rolling momentum, in 2019 Run To Me garnered another four Maples Blues nominations, a Juno nomination (Canada’s Grammy Awards) and paved the way for Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar’s assault on European club and concert stages. Starting with a blitzkrieg attack consisting of 42 club dates in six weeks in early 2019, three tours and a year later the group was being booked at a number of major European festivals.
Martin is the lead singer, songwriter and focal point of the group. A dynamic front woman, she possesses a stunning voice that is capable of summoning up tidal waves of spine-tingling emotion in one instance while delicately bringing out the nuances of a gut-wrenching lyric in the next. A torrid force of nature, night after night she takes audiences to emotional peaks while leaving them stunned with her sheer pin-you-against-the-wall power.
While Martin is a powerhouse unto herself, the vocal alchemy of Delta Sugaris not the work of a single talent. In combination with what she likes to term her “co-vocalists,” the vocal blend that Delta Sugar produces is pure, unadulterated gospel-tinged, neuron-tingling magic where the sum is even richer than the already soul-melting parts.
The first single from Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar’s stunning new album, The Reckless One, is a four-on-floor stomping dance track entitled “Don’t Have To Be.” Sporting a melody that will have listeners singing along, the track features swirling Booker T-inspired organ, a swaggering horn line and Samantha Martin’s trademark hurricane-force vocals. Irresistibly catchy, the song has been filling dance floors every night since she started performing it.
Discography
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A Beautiful Buzz (Live)
|
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Love is All Around (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 2 | Don’t Have to Be (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 3 | You’re the Love (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 4 | Good Trouble (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 5 | All Night Long (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 6 | The Shape I’m in (feat. Steve Marriner) [Live] | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 7 | I’ve Got a Feeling (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 8 | My Crown (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 9 | Loving You is Easy (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 10 | Band Introductions (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 11 | Pass Me by (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 12 | Them Changes (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 13 | Loving Cup (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
The Reckless One
Label: Gypsy Soul
Genres: Blues
Styles: Soul Blues
Songs on the Album
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Love is All Around | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 2 | Don’t Have to Be (Live) | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 3 | Meet Me in the Morning | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 4 | Loving You is Easy | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 5 | One Heartbreak | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 6 | I've Got a Feeling | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 7 | Sacrifice | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 8 | So I Always Know | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 9 | Pass Me by | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 10 | Better to Have Never | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 11 | All That I Am | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 12 | Who Do You | Soul Blues | Blues |
Run to Me
Label: Gypsy Soul
Genres: Blues, Unknown
Styles: Blues, Soul Blues, Unknown
Songs on the Album
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | You're the Love | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 2 | Gonna Find It | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 3 | Will We Ever Learn | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 4 | Wanna Be Your Lover | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 5 | Chasing Dreams | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 6 | Good Trouble | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 7 | Over You | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 8 | This Night is Mine | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 9 | Only So Much | Soul Blues | Blues |
| 10 | All Night Long | Soul Blues | Blues |
Send the Nightingale
Label: Self-Release
Genres: Blues
Styles: Contemporary Blues, Soul Blues
Songs on the Album
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Give Me Your Mercy | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 2 | Addicted | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 3 | When You Walk Away | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 4 | Don't Shoot | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 5 | One More Day | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 6 | Take Us Swiftly Home | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 7 | Won't You Stay | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 8 | Mississippi Sun | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 9 | My Crown | Blues Rock | Blues |
| 10 | I Won't Justify | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 11 | Tell the Heavens | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
Mississippi Sun
Label: Dollartone
Genres: Blues
Styles: Contemporary Blues
Songs on the Album
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Won't You Stay | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 2 | One More Day | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 3 | Mississippi Sun | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 4 | Dark Angel | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 5 | Low is the Way | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
Back Home
Label: Self-Release
Genres: Blues
Styles: Contemporary Blues
Songs on the Album
| Track # | Song Title | Style | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lonesome Roads | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 2 | I'll Go | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 3 | Back Home | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 4 | Tellin' Time | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 5 | Trucker's Daughter | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 6 | San Antonio Blue | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 7 | Devil and a Baby | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 8 | China Doll | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 9 | Pearl | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 10 | Love Might Come Looking for You | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 11 | Trucker Dan | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
| 12 | I Wanna Know | Contemporary Blues | Blues |
Reviews
Send The Nightingale
