Fighting against despair; ALAN NICHOL has the lowdown on what's happening on the roots music scene

Byline: ALAN NICHOL

TEXAS singer Sam Baker has made a huge impression with his first two albums, primarily for the quality of his song-writing.

His eagle-eye picks out details from mundane subject matter without wasting a word.

He has been compared to writers John Prine, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, but Baker, who is at Gateshead's Little Theatre tonight, stands out.

His life was fairly standard - sport, music, college - until he turned 30. Then things changed in a big way.

He was travelling on a train in Peru when a bomb ripped through the carriages and several people were killed.

Three members of a German family sitting next to him were among them.

Baker himself was left with shrapnel wounds, renal failure, brain damage and, subsequently, gangrene.

His left hand was permanently damaged. He can, however, still hold a plectrum and he re-learned the guitar "wrong-handed".

Baker also suffered hearing problems in the form of tinnitus (particularly cruel for a musician), which will never go away.

Despite it all, he got back on his feet and fought back.

The recovery period was long and hard, mentally and physically, with many frustrations.

Not that you would detect any of this in his writing. He is sharp, original and graphic with every phrase carefully polished.

One song on his Pretty World album is particularly autobiographical. Broken Fingers is a potent recollection, completely free of self-pity, of the Peruvian incident.

He said: "I went through the anger and the bitterness, but that energy didn't get me anywhere.

"It's toxic and, ultimately, I did come to a point where I wanted to make the most of these days which are beautiful. They are so short and so quick to pass.

"And that's all we've got - no matter what we hold in our hands, drive around in, put in the bank, or shower ourselves with, all we've got is this one breath.

"Then, if we're lucky, we have the next breath."

His songs, almost exclusively summed-up in single word titles, are distilled to the very essence.

While he was greatly influenced by his father's blues collection (plus some Johnny Cash), it was tempered by his mother's classical and Broadway preferences.

For a man with a love of novelists like Hemingway and Faulkener, the songwriters he most admires are firmly in the literary camp - Stephen Foster, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman among them.

From all of this comes his ability to be graphically descriptive yet succinct and witty as well.

Get ticket info from (0191) 230 4474.

ANOTHER Texan taleteller, Hayes Carll, visits the Live Theatre's upstairs Studio room tomorrow night.

Joshua Hayes Carll, to give him his full name, does country/folk rockers and tear-in-your-beer ballads.

He covers weighty topics with a light touch.

The "bad liver and a broken heart" theme is eloquently done and his albums to date, Flowers & Liquor and Little Rock, have established a strong base.

His current album, Trouble In Mind (Lost Highway), has the presence of steel-guitar virtuoso Al Perkins, multi-instrumentalist Will Kimbrough, and the esteemed Darrell Scott. Ticket info as above.

ALSO tomorrow, nu-folk troubadour Adem will demonstrate his contemporary take on the folk idiom during a return visit to the Sage (Hall 2).

The South Londoner, of English-Turkish parents, dropped his Ilhan surname for his professional work.

His latest work, Takes, sees him cover songs from 1991-2001 by artists as diverse as PJ Harvey, Smashing Pumpkins, Bjork and Yo LaTenga.

COMPLETING the roster of singer-songwriters is Chatham's Pete Molinari. He is at the Cluny next Tuesday and, like American Music Club last week, he makes a rapid return after turning many heads on his debut appearance in the city in January. The fact that Molinari was also a Sunday afternoon success on the outdoor Americana stage at the end of July, gives some idea of the impact he has made.

There is more than a passing connection with the early Dylan. Molinari set-off for the US, ostensibly for a month and ended-up staying for a couple of years.

During that time, he covered many of the Greenwich Village haunts frequented by the young Mr Zimmerman, learning his trade and gathering material. It has worked, too! Talented local lad, Richard Dawson, opens.

THE back end of the week is also busy. On Wednesday, the renowned fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth takes in the Cluny as part of his UK tour.

The Bradford-born guitarist is now based in California, but in his formative years he looked to jazz-players like Joe Pass, Django and Charlie Christian for inspiration.

After his debut, Igginbottom's Wrench, he was a fixture in bands like Tempest, IOU Band and most famously, Soft Machine.

Holdsworth topped the American Guitar Player magazine readers' poll five times which gained him entry to the mag's Hall of Fame.

On Thursday, singer-guitarist, Johnny Dickinson is at the Customs House in South Shields, while back up the River Tyne, at Hexham, there is another chance to catch the hugely talented jazzy trio, Acoustic Triangle, at the Abbey Festival.