'Hometown Throwdown': South Shore's own Sam Luke Chase and Ward Hayden & the Outliers
They’re calling it a “Hometown Throwdown” on Friday, March 29, when two of the area’s hottest up-and-coming musical acts perform in their hometown of Scituate. The River Club Music Hall welcomes Ward Hayden & the Outliers and Sam Luke Chase. The connecting thread between the two is Americana, that roots music category, which in this case encompasses both the Outliers’ country-rock, and Chase’s singer-songwriter rock.
The River Club Music Hall is located at 78 Border St. in Scituate. The show begins at 7 p.m., and tickets for the concert are priced at $25 and $35, available through the venue’s website, theriverclubmusichall.com, or by calling 339-239-6786.
Ironically, one of the South Shore’s most outstanding singer-songwriters began as a drummer. Coming from a musical family, Sam Luke Chase had always been the drummer, first in their family band, The Happenings, and then later in his brother’s group, the Matt Chase Band.
Sam Luke was so serious about drumming that he won a coveted spot studying with the acclaimed jazz and rock drumming program at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“My first couple years at Berklee I was spending all my time as a drummer,” said Chase. “I was not a singer-songwriter at all, but studying drumming, in a progressive rock kind of style.”
But Sam Luke had always been fascinated by how records were made and put together, and eventually that prompted a change in his major. He’d always tried other instruments and enjoyed learning how to play them, and he began seeing the recording studio as yet another instrument to master.
From a drummer to a songwriter
“It wasn’t until I’d switched my major to production and engineering that I really got into more of a songwriting thing,” said Chase. “As I learned more about Pro Tools and layering ideas and so on, writing became really the heart of my process. On my earliest recordings, I’m actually performing on all the instruments, as a sort of one-man band operation.”
As he transitioned to a role performing his own music, Sam Luke concentrated more on guitar. He became adept at singing and playing his own tunes as a solo act, and also worked on putting together a band. His extensive background on drums can still be heard in his playing today.
“I’ve become a better guitar player by concentrating on it more, of course,” said Chase. “I think now I’m a very rhythmically solid guitarist. Playing guitar is not like playing drums, but there are certain rhythms that carry over. There’s a certain flow to my playing that is different, I think, and I’m always feeling the groove with my right hand. Sometimes when I perform, I don’t even want that to come though, but it is just in my DNA.
“Guitar has been my focus since 2008, but I’ve only gotten more into lead guitar in the past five years,” Chase explained. “That’s a role I never would’ve seen myself doing 10 years ago, but it is part of my own growth. I’m always working to learn more about my craft.”
Blending folk music with drive and energy of pop
Sam Luke Chase’s music as a singer-songwriter features the detailed, literate vignettes and stories of folk music, but with the drive and energy of the best pop. His voice is clear and resonant, and seems to straddle the edge of tenor and baritone. But it is effective on both the tender musings of a ballad like his “Nebraska,” or the infectiously joyful “Date Night.” The latter tune finds Chase delivering a potent melody on piano, which is another instrument he’s increasingly utilized as his career unfolded.
Since graduating from Berklee in 2008, Sam Luke has pursued his musical career both in clubs and venues around New England, and often beyond, while also releasing a steady stream of his original music. Critics and fans have compared his work to luminaries like James Taylor, Marc Cohn, Bruce Hornsby, Keb Mo and John Mayer, his fellow Berklee alumnus. In 2010, he won the Connecticut Folk Festival’s Songwriting Contest, and he was a finalist in the 2021 New Song competition at the vaunted Kerrville Folk Festival. He’s also appeared to plaudits at the Falcon Ridge Festival and the Black Bear Americana Festival.
Opening for big names
Chase’s performances have included opening slots for Cohn, Stoughton’s Lori McKenna, Tower of Power, and the band America. Locally, he’s established loyal followings at Quincy’s The Assembly (where he plays Saturday, March 22), The Jetty in Marshfield and the Grafton Street Pub in Cambridge, as well as the Irish Village in Brighton. He’s also developed a nice relationship with the River Club Music Hall, and that traces back to his musical family.
“My father promotes a lot of shows at the River Club,” Chase noted. “The musical operation is separate from the actual River Club, and it is not his building or anything like that. My parents’ band had done events there, and another group had tried to book music there but left. They were looking for someone to help fill in dates, and my dad jumped in. He tries to bring in bands that will draw, and that might include Grateful Dead tributes, Fleetwood Mac tributes, and yacht rock is big right now. But he makes sure it is always great music, and I’ve been lucky enough to open for some of those shows.”
Roots in the Pine Tree State
Sam Luke also lived in Portland, Maine for several years after graduation, and playing in the Pine Tree State earned him fans there too, so, to this day he performs regular gigs at the Portland Lobster Company. Most of the backing band he’ll be fronting in his hometown also comes from those Portland days. Lead guitarist Pete Morse and bassist Mark Chasse hail from the Portland area, while drummer Matt Heisler is a western Massachusetts native.
“I lived in Portland until 2016, and we kept getting gigs at this really nice place in the Old Portland section of town,” said Chase. “I would play a lot of my own music, along with a lot of covers, and that’s how this particular band evolved over the past five or six years. I’m really excited to have people on the South Shore hear this band. I did play a band show in October at the Spire Center (in Plymouth), but with a different guitarist. Pete Morse has gotten very comfortable with my music over the years, and he and Mark are my guys from Maine. The main obstacle to playing more band gigs these days is that we are all older now with kids, and scheduling everyone can be complicated.”
There is a vast reservoir of Sam Luke Chase music online, from his original songs to covers ranging from country stars like Chris Stapleton and Eric Church, to Americana standouts like Pete Yorn. And Chase isn’t afraid to tackle some beloved musical icons’ work either, as his slowed-down and pensive take on Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With it” proves.
Touring with fellow Scituate songsmith Jay Psaros
Sam Luke Chase is married with two daughters, ages thee and five, so his work is balanced between making new music in his home studio and performing live, while maintaining as much family time as possible. He recently completed a western swing with fellow Scituate songsmith Jay Psaros, who frequently enlists him to enhance his own shows as a second guitarist. Live venues aren’t as plentiful as they used to be, but Chase still loves creating new music and bringing it to the public.
“I used to play Toad in Porter Square, Cambridge, all the time, and of course the late, lamented Johnny D’s in Somerville was great for Americana music,” Chase said. “It is hard to maintain a working band these days, but I love band gigs. I’ve tried to build fans and release my new tunes one at a time to build momentum. I’m very excited to get my music out there, and this show in our hometown means a lot to Ward and myself. Friends and family may have moved on, but they come back to see you, and we both have exciting new music. Ward and I are like fraternal twins, who both had Scituate Records as a guidepost growing up, yet our musical paths have never crossed until this show. His current band has blown me away, and we are both thrilled to be sharing the stage at the River Club.”
Some upcoming Sam Luke Chase gigs, mostly solo, fans can note include Saturday, March 22, at The Assembly in Quincy, the Irish Village in Brighton April 26 and May 17, and the Grafton Street Pub in Cambridge on May 2 and June 6.
Eric Lindell has a good time in Fall River
Eric Lindell likes to have a good time, which is why he admitted he’d barely survived the music cruise he’d just capped off by being tossed out of the ship’s pool party – something about his lifelong desire “to be the first to get naked.” He sheepishly showed the Saturday night crowd of 300 at the Narrows Center in Fall River his new haircut, which he got on a cruise stopover in Cozumel – dubbing it his “Cozu-mullet.”
In the wake of his nautical misadventures, Lindell said he’d hardly slept and had to leave New Orleans at 4 a.m. Saturday for a flight north for a series of New England gigs, where he met up with his current band for the first time. Most of his backing quartet had played with him before, but the bassist was brand-new, and that matters for a group that crafts a New Orleans-type of polyrhythmic musical stew. But no worries, as Lindell and his band delivered 100 minutes of steamy, dance-happy, multi-genre bliss for a suitably raucous crowd, with Lindell even tossing his sweater to a front row table when he felt too hot.
It was surprising to look back at a setlist and realize Lindell and company had played little more than a dozen songs, but the night was surely a full entertainment experience. Lindell told stories before almost every tune, and then the band skillfully extended the songs to about 10 minutes each, on average. Lindell would give the other musicians cues with a nod, or a point of his Flying Vee guitar, but the spontaneous nature of the show didn’t detract from the quality.
The night opened with a dazzling romp through 2006’s “Lay Back Down,” a highlight of his first album for the premier blues label Alligator Records, and a tune that has also appeared on the soundtracks for TV shows "True Blood" and "Friday Night Lights."
Live Saturday night, it was a potboiling piece of intense R&B, capped off by Lindell and his sax player’s solos pushing the thermometer higher and higher. “Change My Ways” utilized a chunka-chunka, Bo Diddley beat to push an even more torrid pace. But the slow, sensual blues feel of the love song, “I May be High,” proved Lindell’s vocal skills are also topnotch.
One of my favorite tunes was 2018’s “Appaloosa,” whose infectious, syncopated rhythms framed a lyric about returning to your lover with lines like, “I’m going to ride this appaloosa, From sin to Bogalusa, To see you again.” Lindell’s second guitarist doubled on pedal steel, which lent a sweet country feel to the new “Memories of My Life,” an easy-loping ballad.
And the sax and pedal steel worked for some unique contrast on the subtly burning “Do You Ever Miss Me?” The ghost of Tony Joe White was surely smiling during the long run through the swamp-funk of “Too Late.” And that swamp-rock feel continued with a buoyant rendition of Billy Preston’s “Sunday Morning.”
One highlight may have been the smooth soul of “Bayou Country,” a tune Lindell noted was written by Duke Bardwell, who’d played bass with Elvis Presley. The night ended with the sizzling “Good Times Here” with all five musicians taking fiery solos, ending in a standing ovation.