SAMANTHA ELIN-Songs& Such

It began innocently enough--her first record player and album, The Wizard of Oz soundtrack; an obsession with Annie (the play, not the movie); a trunkful of theatre wigs from her uncle in Chicago; and an antique top hat and cane. When not riding her pink bike emblazoned with Rambling Rose in ornate script across the side, when not under the covers with a flashlight and her nose pressed in a book for hours, when not playing detective and crouching behind furniture with a walkie-talkie, there was music.

A real-life Valley girl from L.A., she would spend her teenhood riding her bike to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, reading novels and plays, and dancing to CDs, FM radio, and her parents' records--mostly folk and musicals. Shimmying, twirling, and sitting for hours with giant headphones blasting Gordon Lightfoot, West Side Story, Annie, and later, new wave, Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Sinatra were her passions. The music that made the greatest impression, that made her fall in love with folk, was an album of Joan Baez covering songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “The Dangling Conversation.”  The beauty of it all was pretty earth-shattering. The latter song led her to Simon and Garfunkel, heaven to her ears, and later, Paul Simon’s solo works. Could anything be better, she wondered.

The years ticked by, and still she danced and read books and newspapers and dreamed of a life in environmental investigative journalism. Never imagining creating her own lyrics or music, she went off to get a journalism degree and wrote copy for nonprofits, before becoming a technical editor. She listened to Americana-roots artists, from Rodney Crowell to Lucinda Williams, and the music tapped into that folk she had loved long ago. And suddenly, out of nowhere, she started writing lyrics. Hokey at first. But they started to improve. Then she saw Merle Haggard play in Bakersfield. And the next day, she couldn’t explain it, but she had to buy a guitar.

She’d played some piano in her childhood, but this was different. The metal strings dug into her fingertips and created silver creases and then came the callouses. But she played and played, not necessarily very well, but good enough to start singing melodies that to her ear went with the chords. She found out about a legendary place in the north San Fernando Valley, Blue Ridge Pickin’ Parlor.  Bluegrass guitarist Howard Yearwood asked her, "You want to learn to be a musician or do you want to write songs—no time to do both."  She wrote her first song; he was polite and told her to write another. That one he liked, a lot, and he urged her to get a demo made.

The songs piled up—country, eclectic indie-folk, bluesy-folk, folk-rock, folk-pop. Story songs with linear narratives, abstract impressions, love songs, protest songs, completely made-up characters, tales based on newspaper blurbs. She fell in love with studio recording. Two CDs were released simultaneously—Blue Plate Special and Late Bloomer. She sang lead on some of the tunes, and left some for others to sing-- musicians she’d met, like John Cowsill of The Cowsills family band and Hirth Martinez, a prolific jazz/folk singer who’d written songs with Donald Fagen. She collaborated with Danny Faragher, who’d been in multiple ‘60s and ‘70s bands. One of L.A.’s leading guitarists, Bob Gothar, has worked with her on much of her music, as an arranger, multi-instrumentalist and co-engineer. 

Tom Feher from The Left Banke heard her at a weekly Hootenanny and invited her to be part of a one-time jug band concert at the Urban Homestead, a renowned organic farm in Pasadena. The band had so much fun, they decided to “go on the road” all over the L.A. area. Homemade Jam morphed into a Tin Pan Alley and vintage blues band with retro originals thrown in and a local following. Elin tap danced, played percussion and sang. She later spun off a similar band called The Knobby Knees, inspired by a photo she saw of herself on stage.

In 2023, she turned to caregiving for family. She kept writing and recently has returned to recording. She’s been a multi-category finalist in the UK Songwriting Contest, and in 2022, one of her songs won Best Lyrics, and in 2025, Best Retro song.  American Songwriter magazine has honored her with a first-place Best Lyrics award and featured her in a full-page Q&A. She looks forward to releasing more music over the next year.