Sam Amidon’s latest album Bright Sunny South sees the Vermont-born singer-songwriter extending his reinvention of folk even further with a collection of tracks that strike at the grassroots of the musical canon.

Truly a music historian as much as a performer, Amidon even finds time for a coarsely beautiful cover of Mariah Carey’s ‘Shake it Off’.

Our first session with Sam was the frantic Appalachian banjo jam ‘Sam Amidon perform ‘As I Roved Out’ for Best Fit" href="http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/videos/best-fit-sessions/sam-amidon-as-i-roved-ou-125740" class="ext-link" rel="external" target="_blank">As I Roved Out’ but he slowed things down for the second – the underplayed, soothing ‘Short Life’, which you can watch above.

You can catch Amidon alongside Beth Orton at Latitude this moth (19 July) and a day later he’s playing support to Martha Wainwright at The Sage in Gateshead.

Bright Sunny South is out now via Nonesuch.