Sam Carter

Midlands-born guitarist and songwriter Sam Carter has earned a reputation for vivid, narrative-driven songwriting and captivating live performances. He is a highly-regarded instrumentalist, renowned by many as “the finest English-style fingerpicking guitarist of his generation” (Jon Boden).

Over the past fifteen years, Sam has made appearances on national TV, won a BBC Folk Award, and has toured the world, sharing stages with some of folk’s leading lights, including Richard Thompson, Eliza Carthy, Martin Simpson and Nancy Kerr.

Sam’s albums and live shows attest to his flair for powerful, keenly observed songwriting and his love for British and American traditional folksong. In 2012 he gave a spell-binding performance on Later… with Jools Holland, playing songs from the shape-note influenced album The No Testament, accompanied by fiddler Sam Sweeney. Sam continues to innovate within the tradition alongside Jim Moray in Folk Award-nominated electro-folk band False Lights, who released their second album Harmonograph to wide acclaim in 2018.

‘Sam Carter’s fourth solo album Home Waters is his best yet. He’s not really doing anything different on it, there’s still his classic folk voice, superb guitar picking and fine songwriting but everything has just been taken up a notch or two… …an album full of quiet pleasures, made by a musician at the top of his game’ ⭑⭑⭑⭑ R2 Magazine