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February 2, 2007
Grammy nominations cap off stellar year
for Cape Breton's Gordie Sampson
Canadian Press
TORONTO
(CP) - It's been a year of surprises for Canadian songwriter
Gordie Sampson, whose massive country hit, "Jesus Take the
Wheel," has opened the door to a string of superstar
collaborations and a shot at one of music's most
sought-after prizes.
After
conquering the charts with the monster single - partly
inspired by a Cape Breton road crash - the affable Nova
Scotian says his upcoming trip to the Grammys is a surreal
turn in his exploding career.
Although
he'd found modest success writing album tracks for various
artists, the song was his first to be released to U.S.
radio.
"The first
single I had was 'Jesus Take the Wheel' and it was just such
a bang to happen as the first single," Sampson says by phone
from his home just outside Sydney, N.S.
"It's kind
of like the hockey player, the new guy on the team, that
gets the right pass and scores the goal and everybody in the
crowd stands up and goes, 'Hey, who's that?' "
The
soaring inspirational tune, co-written with U.S. songwriters
Hillary Lindsey and Brett James and sung by former "American
Idol" winner Carrie Underwood, topped the Billboard charts
for six weeks and transformed Sampson from a fledgling
country music writer into one of Nashville's hottest
newcomers.
The
35-year-old musician, known in Atlantic Canada for his early
career as a Cape Breton roots performer, had been travelling
to the music capital on-and-off for eight years looking for
a break, and scored his first big songwriting gig three
years ago with a song on a Faith Hill record.
"This is
all relatively new stuff for me," says Sampson, who's recent
collaborators include Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes and Bon
Jovi.
"Nothing
had really happened before then and the Faith cut, which was
followed by a Keith Urban cut, a couple of other little
things, and then boom I got this Carrie Underwood cut, which
was a single. Right after we got that, the doors just opened
as wide as they could."
"I've had
a lot of cuts since then, some of which might be singles
yet.... As a writer, singles are what you want to have
because they generate so much more money than just having a
cut, so that's really what you strive for, if you're writing
pop music or country music of any kind, you want to get
stuff on the radio."
A recent
collaboration with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora may land
on a country-tinged Bon Jovi album.
"Bon Jovi
is probably the biggest guilty pleasure in the world,
everybody's a fan kind of in a way. They're enigmas, they're
legends," says Sampson."I was actually quite nervous writing
with them because it was just a bit surreal but they turned
out to be...incredibly great guys."
Sampson's
radio success with "Jesus Take the Wheel" has also brought a
slew of professional accolades. So far, they include SOCAN's
songwriter of the year award at the Canadian Country Music
Awards, the ASCAP song of the year in the United States, the
Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMA) Single of the Year
and the Nashville Songwriters Association's international
songwriter achievement award.
Now the
song is up for two Grammys at a gala bash in Los Angeles on
Feb. 11 and Sampson still marvels at its success.
"I don't
even know that song anymore, it doesn't even know me. It's
taken on a life of its own, it just flew away."
The song's
compelling narrative, in which a young mother loses control
of her car on an ice-slicked road, was inspired by a car
crash that claimed the life of a friend's sister, says
Sampson. He happened to drive past the scene on a Cape
Breton road and recalled another story his aunt once told
him about losing control of her own car.
"She was
very religious and she kind of just threw her hands up in
the air and asked God to take control of the car," says
Sampson, who now splits his time between homes in Nashville
and Cape Breton.
"I hadn't
thought about it for years and I thought it would be a cool
song. I brought the idea to the other writers, Hillary and
Brett and they kind of had their own inspirations that were
similar, so we wrote it."
While
Sampson suspected the hit would be nominated for best
country song, he wasn't expecting a nod for song of the
year, too. That category tends to be dominated by rock and
pop tunes and rarely recognizes country, he says.
Sampson
says he's looking forward to witnessing one of music's
biggest spectacles, a star-packed show that this year will
feature a reunion by the Police and is dominated by
nominations for R&B songstress Mary J. Blige and veteran
rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
"I
wouldn't miss it for the world," says Sampson, who says he's
bringing his wife and three-year-old baby to L.A. for the
Grammy weekend.
"We've
been lucky enough to have been nominated for a whole bunch
of different awards for this song, some of which we've won,
some of which we haven't. And mostly all the big ones, like
the televised ones, are the ones we haven't won, so we're,
at this point, we're used to either winning or not. It
wouldn't be a heartbreaker if we don't win."
After the
kind of year he's had, Sampson figures he's already achieved
his dream.
"I always
thought it would be really great if I ever got a song
recorded by a major artist or something. It's a bit
overwhelming now to be able to do it for a living."
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Above photo:
Margaree (by Victor Maurice Faubert)
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