Sam Hunt: ‘Bluegrass Is Really Influential’ On His New Music

Sam Hunt has more new music coming after the recent release of his new song "Kinfolks" and according to Sam, it may have a bit of a bluegrass influence.

Sam explains, "My wife's little sister, Sarah got married this year. The guy she ended up marrying was a mandolin player in a bluegrass band. I used to go watch Marty Raybon play in a bluegrass band called Full Circle, when I used to play down at Jacksonville State when I was in college. I always liked bluegrass music, but I kind of fell back in love with it. I have listened to a lot of it in the past few years and I started going to some amazing shows and digging back in."

He continued, "I got so excited about those guys playing in bluegrass music and I wanted to start jamming with them. So, I started staying up late at night learning bluegrass standards and trying to get my rhythm down on acoustic guitar so I could jump in and play with them. And that was inspiring learning those songs and Ralph Stanley, I started listening to him all the time. It was really inspiring. So, if I needed inspiration before trying to come up with some ideas I would listen to a bunch of old Ralph Stanley songs, sit there and try to play along."

Hunt concludes, "So bluegrass is really influential. Not that it necessarily will show in the music that I ended up writing for this record. But it was definitely a big inspiration. There is an emotional thing about the way that they sing in the way that they move notes."