Sami Stevens

Sami Stevens loves the classic singers of the ’70s—Joni Mitchell and Donny Hathaway, Carole King and James Taylor, all artists whose work weaves folk and soul, R&B and jazz. Bold but delicate, her voice conjures that bygone era, too, with a brassiness and sensitivity that suggests a studio of tube mics and tape machines. Her 2023 album, Morning, drifts between Muscle Shoals and Laurel Canyon, between lovestruck odes and existential inquiry. But Stevens is not some anachronism, either, with bold stylistic choices that signal that these songs exist in this century—the striking feminist declaration of “Nothing’s Wrong,” the boombap-nodding beat of “Pages of You,” the sweeping textures of “Utica.”

Indeed, though she has toured backing Norah Jones, Stevens’ résumé pushes far beyond singer-songwriter realms. She has worked with Jason Moran and John Zorn and recorded with New Orleans legend Shannon Powell. She has worked as the vocalist for Rose Thorne, too, the stack of songs that Kenny Wolleson’s grandmother wrote a century ago. And Stevens is a longtime member of Tredici Bacci, the Italian soundtrack project founded a dozen years ago by the inventive composer and player Simon Hanes. To wit, Hanes wrote the lush arrangements for Morning, which billows with brass, strings, harp, and pedal steel. “Those parts brought it from these working band arrangements to this dramatic world of ’70s singer-songwriter magic,” Stevens once put it. That magic is alive and well with Stevens.