Sam Robbinsâ third album, So Much I Still Donât See is a testament to a singer songwriterâs journey through his 20âs, through his formative years of 45,000 miles per year touring and the beginning of a troubadourâs career. Most of all, it is the culmination of first-hand experiences gathered through hard travel and big adventures.Â
For the listener, these big adventures are heard through a soft, introspective soundscape, with sounds built sparingly around solo acoustic guitar and vocals, tracked live, just as they are performed live.
Recorded in an old church in Springfield, MA, the sounds of So Much I Still Donât See centre around the humility that comes with traveling and experiencing a world much larger than yourself â looking inward and revelling in the quiet of the inner mind while facing an expansive landscape of life on the road. The storytelling in the songs is draped with touches of upright bass, keyboards, organ, and electric guitar, but the core of the album is one man and his worn out Martin guitar, bought new just a few years ago a week after moving to Nashville.
The sonic landscape of So Much I Still Donât See was largely inspired by the recordings of James Taylor, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin and singer songwriters of the like. Growing up in New Hampshire, Robbins would frequently drive up to the white mountains for weekend hiking trips with his father, accompanied in the old truck by a 70âs singer songwriter CD box set. This music seeped into Robbinsâ soul, and coupled with experiencing the mountain landscape of his childhood, this âold soul singer songwriterâ was shaped by these recordings and the direct, soft and exacting songwriting voices that they exemplified. The storytelling in So Much I Still Donât See is built through small moments.
After a brief stint on NBCâs The Voice in 2018, Robbins graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2019 and quickly made his move down to Nashville. After a tumultuous five years in Music City, So Much I Still Donât See is the first recording made after moving back to the Boston area in early 2024. After trying his hand at co-writing country songs five days a week, Robbins found his way to a home on the road, now performing over 200 shows per year in listening rooms and festivals across the country.
This touring and subsequent songwriting growth has led to several awards and festival performances, making Robbins a 2021 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk contest winner, a 2022 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival âMost Wanted to Returnâ artist, and later a solo mainstage performer at each festival in 2023 and 2024. Robbins has expanded his touring to festivals nationwide, including the Wheatland Festival in Michigan, the Fox Valley Folk Music and Storytelling Festival, and has earned a title as âOne of the most promising new songwriters of his generationâ â Mike Davies, Fateau Magazine, UK
In early 2023, Robbins was gifted Marcus Aureliusâs âMeditationsâ, a collection of the Roman Emperorâs diaries in the early 100âs AD. The ideas from this book, centered around the concepts of stoicism, seeped into the songs of So Much I Still Donât See. Much of the album reflects on the inner peace found through stoic philosophy that was discovered in reading this book throughout the past year on the road.Â
Another influence on the songwriting of So Much I Still Donât See is Robbinsâ work with the group Music Therapy Retreats. This is the first recording made after starting his work with the organization, which pairs songwriters with veterans to help write their often unheard and inspiring stories into songs. This life changing and life-affirming experience has drawn out deeper emotions and deeper stories in Robbinsâ own writing and music, inspired by the open hearts and stories of the veterans he is lucky to work with.
The first single off the album, âWhat a Little Love Can Doâ is a song that captured a moment. Sitting in Nashville after hearing the news of a shooting in the city, Robbins sat alone with his guitar and strummed. Living in the heart of a red state, far away from his New England home, the events of the day made the cracks appear clearer than heâd ever seen them. The first lyrics that appeared in that moment are the first lyrics in the song â âItâs gonna be a long road when we look at where we started, one nation broken hearted, always running from ourselvesâ. The heaviness of the news of the day, and the news of every day since, has not subsided since this song was written in 2023.Â
What led from that lyric was a flow-state writing process. A story of the learning and connections built from Robbinsâ travels across the US on tour, driving over 100,000 miles in two years, playing hundreds of shows and meeting thousands of people from very different backgrounds. From Birmingham to Detroit, New Orleans to Los Angeles, Boston to Denver, this song was unknowingly written as the culmination of the lessons learned from these adventures. The depth of connection found when we are physically with one another, when we can talk and laugh and truly see each other, is at the heart of âWhat a Little Love Can Doâ, and the album as a whole.Â
The second single and opening track from So Much I Still Donât See, the sparkling and introspective âPiles of Sandâ, was the first song written for the album. The song was written in Nashville and is, like much of the album, written from a place of simplicity and observation.Â
He shares, “Walking down a riverside path in Nashville, next to the barbed wire of a prison, watching and feeling gravel being blasted for a high flying condo building across the street was a very inspiring moment. After walking further and seeing a huge pile of gravel soaring high across the street, the first chorus lyric was immediately written down as it appears in the song now: âI thought it was a mountain but it was just a pile of sand towering so high, a nine to five creationâ. This line and rhythm was springboard for the rest of the song, steeped in Stoicism, written that afternoon.”Â
As the opening track to the album, the sounds of âPiles of Sandâ are built around the stark simplicity of a man and his guitar, the perfect sound to kick off the album. Inspired by the James Taylor live album One Man Band, only sparse piano moments are included throughout the song, setting the stage for an album that showcases Robbinsâ stunning guitar work and fresh, clear songwriting voice.
The third single from So Much I Still Donât See, the Chet Atkins-inspired, upbeat âThe Real Thingâ, is the second track on the album and an example of the varied energy across the collection of ten songs. âThe Real Thingâ began with a lyrical groove â driving out of a certain American city on tour, thousands of miles from home, with a 12 hour drive ahead, the spark of inspiration hit. The groove of the first line, âIâm sailing smooth highway under soft suburb lights/ where an Applebeeâs oversees every cornerâ led to the rest of âThe Real Thingâ being written all in one night at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, USA. The song is a lighter take on the existential questions present throughout the album. Diving into questions of environmentalism, manâs place in the world, and the writerâs place in the world, âThe Real Thingâ is the upbeat kickoff to the soft, cutting, inquisitive âSo Much I Still Donât Seeâ.
Sonically, âThe Real Thingâ is a tribute to one of Robbinsâs main influences on guitar, the great fingerstyle player Chet Atkins. With Chetâs signature thumping thumb technique, Robbins built a sonic palette that utilized this classic sound but twisted it with his own modern take. The thumping, western-style groove emulates the vibe of the lyrics â the quintessentially American feeling of driving fast down a dusty highway, to get to anywhere but where you are.