In the summer of 2002, I was walking in Washington Square and I stopped and turned because I heard someone playing the guitar unlike anyone else I’d ever heard in the Park. I sat down for what I expected would be 15 minutes; it was 6 hours later that I finally got up and left, but not without getting to talk to Scott and ask if he played there regularly. I was surprised to find out that Scott had been playing there for a few years and somehow I had been coming at the wrong time and missed him. I made sure I changed my schedule for when I came to Washington Square.
I’ve called Scott Samuels the “Joe Pass of Pop” and “The King of Pop”. It’s not because he plays solo jazz guitar all day like Joe Pass or dances like Michael Jackson. What Scott Samuels does do though, is play each song like a one man band, as well as sing along with his guitar. Scott doesn’t play one style of music and this is why there have been many nights where 100 to 200 people have parked themselves all around him and watched as Scott and his regular fans joined in singing the choruses to all different styles. It’s not unusual to hear songs from Elton John, Billy Joel, Van Halen, Prince, Hall and Oates, Al Green, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Syreeta, Celine Dion, Jimi Hendrix, Tony Bennett, Al Jolson and the list goes on to roughly 2,000 songs. It just depends on the audience.
Scott has a decent voice, but what’s more he draws some excellent singers, that he gladly turns over the lead vocals to when he enjoys their style. William Galison and Madleine Peyroux have joined Scott on occasion. I was a regular in the Park in 2002 – 2004 and would find myself planted there listening and singing along for up to 10 hours — Scott actually played that many hours! Sometimes Scott just didn’t take breaks, he’d be just sipping on a few Snapple Juices and back to playing. Scott was like the Energizer Bunny.
There was an early evening in 2003 that a few of us had been sitting listening to Scott for 3 or 4 hours; this was a day that Greenwich Village was filled with protesters opposing the beginning of the Iraq War. After the protest march had ended, many of those protesters decided to head into Washington Square and within about an hour the Park was packed with people that had added to our small group of listeners. Scott chose to play the song “Imagine” by John Lennon and strangely enough so many people had tiny candles that they passed around and this is a sight that should have been captured on the news, but roughly 1,000 people were all singing “Imagine,” waving candles and accompanying a single guitar.
Scott Samuels is a self-taught guitarist, that you’ll often see using piano voicings for his guitar, because he was heavily influenced by many composers that played piano. On the other hand Scott plays fast solos when he is joined by other players and he’s been seen by many of us not only playing Eddie Van Halen, or Jimi Hendrix solos, but even playing the music of Alan Holdsworth and all of this is being played on an acoustic guitar.
A funny tidbit about Scott is that his father is a song writer that wrote some funny tunes; one of his songs is “I Owe A Lot To Iowa Pot” and a song that was banned and became quite famous entitled “They’re Coming To Take Me Away.”
Being a regular to the Park Jam, is the one thing that I miss about New York, now that I live in Oregon. But, whenever I hear that someone is going to New York City in the summer, I tell them that if it is a warm summer day, they should make their way down to Washington Square Park and look for Scott Samuels. I know I will!