SamboraBlog

Grammy nominations cap off stellar year for Nova Scotia's Gordie Sampson

TORONTO (CP) - It's been a year of surprises for Canadian songwriter Gordie Sampson, whose massive country hit, "Jesus Take the Wheel," has opened the door to a string of superstar collaborations and a shot at one of music's most sought-after prizes.

After conquering the charts with the monster single - partly inspired by a Cape Breton road crash - the affable Nova Scotian says his upcoming trip to the Grammys is a surreal turn in his exploding career.

Although he'd found modest success writing album tracks for various artists, the song was his first to be released to U.S. radio.

"The first single I had was 'Jesus Take the Wheel' and it was just such a bang to happen as the first single," Sampson says by phone from his home just outside Sydney, N.S.

"It's kind of like the hockey player, the new guy on the team, that gets the right pass and scores the goal and everybody in the crowd stands up and goes, 'Hey, who's that?' "

The soaring inspirational tune, co-written with U.S. songwriters Hillary Lindsey and Brett James and sung by former "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood, topped the Billboard charts for six weeks and transformed Sampson from a fledgling country music writer into one of Nashville's hottest newcomers.

The 35-year-old musician, known in Atlantic Canada for his early career as a Cape Breton roots performer, had been travelling to the music capital on-and-off for eight years looking for a break, and scored his first big songwriting gig three years ago with a song on a Faith Hill record.

"This is all relatively new stuff for me," says Sampson, who's recent collaborators include Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes and Bon Jovi.

"Nothing had really happened before then and the Faith cut, which was followed by a Keith Urban cut, a couple of other little things, and then boom I got this Carrie Underwood cut, which was a single. Right after we got that, the doors just opened as wide as they could."

"I've had a lot of cuts since then, some of which might be singles yet.... As a writer, singles are what you want to have because they generate so much more money than just having a cut, so that's really what you strive for, if you're writing pop music or country music of any kind, you want to get stuff on the radio."

A recent collaboration with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora may land on a country-tinged Bon Jovi album.

"Bon Jovi is probably the biggest guilty pleasure in the world, everybody's a fan kind of in a way. They're enigmas, they're legends," says Sampson."I was actually quite nervous writing with them because it was just a bit surreal but they turned out to be...incredibly great guys."

Sampson's radio success with "Jesus Take the Wheel" has also brought a slew of professional accolades. So far, they include SOCAN's songwriter of the year award at the Canadian Country Music Awards, the ASCAP song of the year in the United States, the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMA) Single of the Year and the Nashville Songwriters Association's international songwriter achievement award.

Now the song is up for two Grammys at a gala bash in Los Angeles on Feb. 11 and Sampson still marvels at its success.

"I don't even know that song anymore, it doesn't even know me. It's taken on a life of its own, it just flew away."

The song's compelling narrative, in which a young mother loses control of her car on an ice-slicked road, was inspired by a car crash that claimed the life of a friend's sister, says Sampson. He happened to drive past the scene on a Cape Breton road and recalled another story his aunt once told him about losing control of her own car.

"She was very religious and she kind of just threw her hands up in the air and asked God to take control of the car," says Sampson, who now splits his time between homes in Nashville and Cape Breton.

"I hadn't thought about it for years and I thought it would be a cool song. I brought the idea to the other writers, Hillary and Brett and they kind of had their own inspirations that were similar, so we wrote it."

While Sampson suspected the hit would be nominated for best country song, he wasn't expecting a nod for song of the year, too. That category tends to be dominated by rock and pop tunes and rarely recognizes country, he says.

Sampson says he's looking forward to witnessing one of music's biggest spectacles, a star-packed show that this year will feature a reunion by the Police and is dominated by nominations for R&B songstress Mary J. Blige and veteran rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," says Sampson, who says he's bringing his wife and three-year-old baby to L.A. for the Grammy weekend.

"We've been lucky enough to have been nominated for a whole bunch of different awards for this song, some of which we've won, some of which we haven't. And mostly all the big ones, like the televised ones, are the ones we haven't won, so we're, at this point, we're used to either winning or not. It wouldn't be a heartbreaker if we don't win."

After the kind of year he's had, Sampson figures he's already achieved his dream.

"I always thought it would be really great if I ever got a song recorded by a major artist or something. It's a bit overwhelming now to be able to do it for a living."