Gordie Sampson


Gordon Francis Sampson is a Canadian singer-songwriter and producer from Big Pond, Nova Scotia.
Beginning his career as a performer on his hometown island of Cape Breton, both in bands and on his own, Sampson has gone on to achieve international success as a songwriter in Nashville. He has written songs for Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, and Rascal Flatts. He has also released albums as a solo performer.
Sampson has received a Grammy Award, a Juno Award, two ASCAP Awards, East Coast Music Awards, and honorary degrees from Cape Breton University and St. Francis Xavier University.

Background

Sampson was born in 1971 to Francis Xavier Sampson and Florence Ley. Sampson's only musical training as a child were piano lessons he took from his mother. He remembers being surrounded by fiddlers, who were very common in Cape Breton. Initially, he had no interest in fiddle music, but only wanted to be in a rock'n'roll band. He taught himself to play guitar and played in school bands in both junior high and high school, playing material from acts such as AC/DC and Black Sabbath.
Sampson attended Riverview Rural High School in the late 1980s. His first band was called Ricochet; he played with them at age 17, straight out of high school, going on a six-month tour of the Maritimes. After that, in the early 1990s, he was invited to join the Nova Scotia band Realworld with brothers Jamie and Matthew Foulds. The group released one CD, Dig; three singles from the album, all co-written by Sampson, were Top 10 hits in Canada in 1994. But the band was growing apart, and broke up later that year.

Career

After Realworld disbanded, Sampson found himself increasingly interested in exploring the traditional Celtic music for which Cape Breton is well known. Gigging with local musicians led him to a place in Ashley MacIsaac's band just as MacIsaac was seeking a fusion of traditional Celtic music with contemporary rock'n'roll. Sampson co-wrote two songs on MacIsaac's successful 1996 debut album, Hi™ How Are You Today?.
Around this same time, Sampson became a part of Rita MacNeil's band, both on the road and on her popular weekly CBC show Rita and Friends. He also toured with the Nova Scotia-based family music group The Rankin Family.
Sampson recorded his first solo album in 1998, entitled Stones, which was recorded at Lakewind Sound Studios in Point Aconi, Nova Scotia—a recording studio Sampson and partner Fred Lavery built together in 1996. The album was nominated for a Juno Award; the single, "Sorry," won three East Coast Music Awards.
In the late 1990s, Sampson also began to concentrate more on his songwriting, with the aim of getting other musicians to record his songs. Over time he began to see how challenging this was going to be from his Cape Breton hometown. In 2005, he moved with his wife and baby to Nashville, even though knew very little about country music at that point.
Within a year, Sampson had co-written "Jesus, Take the Wheel," former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood had recorded it, and the song was number one on the Billboard country music chart for six weeks. Sampson has said that the song was inspired by the death of an acquaintance in a car accident on a highway in Nova Scotia two years earlier. "Jesus, Take the Wheel" was co-written with Brett James and Hillary Lindsey.
Sampson has been quoted as saying that the success of "Jesus, Take the Wheel" "worked wonders for my music career." He has since written songs which have been recorded by Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Trace Adkins, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, Willie Nelson, and many other well-known country performers. He wrote the song "Any Other Day" for the 2007 Bon Jovi album Lost Highway. He has produced albums for Natalie McMaster and Damhnait Doyle.
Sampson has also recorded three more solo albums since his 1998 debut. His second CD, Sunburn, was largely written in partnership with Troy Verges and Blair Daly. Sampson produced the CD and played the majority of the instruments on the album, including guitars, bass, drums and piano. The album was recorded at Lakewind Sound Studios, as well as in studios in Toronto and Nashville. For The Few And Far Between was released in 2008; it was nominated for a 2009 Juno Award and was the recipient of two East Coast Music Awards. Almost Beautiful came out in 2011, and is the first solo album of his move away from the rootsy pop music of his previous releases and towards the kind of country music he has been writing for others for many years.
Sampson lives in Nashville with his wife, Helen Musial, and their daughter Amelie. He still returns to Cape Breton for a couple of months every summer.
In 2010, the Gordie Sampson Songcamp was conceived by Sampson as a way to encourage and develop young songwriters from across Nova Scotia. Sampson attends the intensive, five-day event every year, often accompanied by special professional guests.

Discography

Albums

Gordie Sampson songs covered by other artists

These are songs written or co-written by Sampson and covered by other artists: