California Country Singer Sam Outlaw Releases First Song From Angeleno, Coming June 9, 2015 on Six Shooter Records.

Listen to “Who Do You Think You Are?” the first single released from Sam Outlaw’s debut full-length album, Angeleno, here.

Sam Outlaw performs “Who Do You Think You Are?” Live in LA.
The future’s bright for the young Angeleno
And an old song plays in his head
Far as he knows. . .

Introducing Sam Outlaw, a southern Californian singer-songwriter steeped in the music and mythos of west coast country, from the classic vibes of everything from ‘60s Bakersfield honky-tonk to ‘70s Laurel Canyon troubadour pop. With a sound that’s pleasurably past, present and future tense, Sam Outlaw’s impeccable California country music shines on Angeleno, his debut album due on June 9, 2015 on Six Shooter Records.

“The music I play, I call ‘SoCal country,’” says Outlaw. “It’s country music but with a Southern California spirit to it. What is it about Southern California that gives it that spirit, I don’t exactly know. But there’s an idea that I like that says – every song, even happy songs, are written from a place of sadness. If there’s a special sadness to Southern California it’s that there’s an abiding shadow of loss of what used to be. But then, like with any place, you have a resilient optimism as well.”

While he explores those shadows on the title track and the elegiac “Ghost Town,” Outlaw mostly comes down on the side of the optimists through Angeleno’s dozen tracks. Opener “Who Do You Think You Are?” breezes in with south of the border charm, all sunny melody wrapped in mariachi horns, while “I’m Not Jealous” is a honky-tonker with a smart twist on the you-done-me-wrong plot. “Love Her For A While” has the amiable lope of early ‘70s Poco, “Old Fashioned” the immediacy of a touch on the cheek, and the future Saturday night anthem “Jesus Take The Wheel (And Drive Me To A Bar)” shows Outlaw has a sense of humor to match his cowboy poet nature. Throughout, producers Ry and Joachim Cooder frame the material with spare, tasteful arrangements, keeping the focus on Outlaw’s voice. And it’s a voice that indeed seems to conjure up California in the same way as Jackson Browne’s or Glenn Frey’s. Easy on the ears, open-hearted, always with an undertow of melancholy.