Samantha Crain

Samantha Crain (born August 15, 1986) is a Choctaw Nation songwriter, musician, producer, and singer from Shawnee, Oklahoma, signed with Ramseur Records (North America) and Real Kind Records (an imprint of Communion Records) and Full Time Hobby Records (UK/Europe).

It was produced by Joey Lemon of the Chicago-based band, Berry, and later reissued by Ramseur Records in 2007.

It is based on five short stories by Crain.

Crain won three NAMMYs (Native American Music Awards) in 2009 for Folk Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year and in 2022 for Single of the Year for "Bloomsday".

She then founded Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers with Jacob Edwards and Andrew Tanz and toured with this band until 2009.

Crain has lent her voice to recordings for Murder By Death, Parker Millsap, Wild Pink, Hamish Hawk, and others.

She also appeared on Conan with First Aid Kit for their filmed performance of "Stay Gold".

She has toured with the Avett Brothers, Cotton Jones, Langhorne Slim, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mountain Goats, Murder By Death, Brandi Carlile, Watchhouse, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Amigo the Devil, John Moreland, The Staves, William Elliott Whitmore, Lucy Rose, Josh Ritter, Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds, First Aid Kit, Ha Ha Tonka, Deer Tick, Smoke Fairies, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Sister SuVi, Ingrid Michaelson, Meiko, Racheal Yamagata, Jenny Owen Youngs, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Emma Gatrill, American Aquarium, Erland and the Carnival, Parker Millsap, Broncho, Ali Harter, Beth Bombara, Berry, Ben Weaver, the Everybodyfields, Bombadil, Gregory Alan Isakov, Ninja Gun, and others.

Crain's first LP with her former backing band, the Midnight Shivers, was the April 28, 2009 release Songs in the Night.

The album was produced by Danny Kadar and recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, North Carolina.

Songs in the Night features Crain on acoustic guitar and vocals, Jacob Edwards on drums, trombone, and harmonica, Andrew Tanz on bass guitar, keys, and vocals, and Stephen Sebastian on electric guitar.

Ben Wigler, formerly of the band Arizona, provides vocal harmonies on the track "Get the Fever Out".

Songs in the Night was met with critical praise.

Paste magazine gave the record a rating of 78 out of 100 and featured it many times online and in the magazine.

Rolling Stone magazine reviewed it with 3.5 stars out of 5, saying "Her voice is gorgeously odd — all fulsome, shape-shifting vowels that do indeed billow like fog."

After the Midnight Shivers disbanded, Crain released her second LP on June 8, 2010.

The album was recorded in 7 days in Joey Lemon's studio in Wichita, Kansas.

It features Crain on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, and keys, Joey Lemon on bass, percussion, and vocals, Arizona's Ben Wigler on vocals and electric guitar, Eric Nauni (of Student Film, WAD, and Beau Jennings and the Tigers) on drums and percussion, and Sherree Chamberlain on vocals on "We Are the Same".

Frontier Ruckus's Matthew Milia and David Jones are featured on the song "Santa Fe" with Milia on vocals and Jones on banjo.

The album release was followed by an NPR Weekend Edition feature.

This album was released in UK and Benelux on November 8, 2011.

"Santa Fe" has gone on to be one of Crain's most loved songs.

Crain has self-produced many of her own recordings, but in 2014, produced the debut record of Oklahoma-based country singer-songwriter, Kierston White.

The album was recorded at Blackwatch Studios in Norman, Oklahoma.

It is entitled "Don't Write Love Songs".

Also, in 2015, she produced the album "Thought of You A God" by the Oklahoma-based band, Annie Oakley.

In 2022, she produced the album, Reservoir, by Kinsey Charles.

Crain's first recording was the self-released EP The Confiscation.

In 2017 and 2018, she worked with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

to compose and contribute music for the extensive T.C. Cannon exhibit "At the Edge of America."

In July 2018, she self-released a collection of sonnets "En Masse: A Collection of 30 Sonnets by Samantha Crain".

In 2022, she composed the musical score for the film "Fancy Dance" starring Lily Gladstone and directed by Erica Tremblay.

Crain was born and raised in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is of Choctaw heritage.

She attended Grove School in Shawnee and Dale High School in Dale, Oklahoma.

As a child and teenager, Crain competed in powerlifting.

Crain taught herself to play guitar and wrote songs based on her short stories the summer before her senior year at Dale High School.

Crain began touring when she was 19.

Her first tours were either solo or as a duo with Beth Bombara.

She also won the Indigenous Music Award for Best Rock Album in 2019.

She has had songs featured on 90210, HBO's Hung, Reservation Dogs on HULU/FX, Resident Alien, and many others, and in many independent documentaries and films, including Barking Water, Dark Divide, and UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong.