SONG PREMIERE: Sam Platts & The Plainsmen Drop Achingly Western “The High Cost of Low Living”

If the words “sad,” “lonesome,” and “twangy” ever ate your heart out. then you might want to look away from the latest achy breaky single from Sam Platts & The Plainsmen. Glide is premiering “The High Cost of Low Living,” (below) which is a majestic “less is more”, effort, where Platt’s vocals soar with gravitas, making like a Colter Wall, lost nugget.

Led by husband-and-wife duo Sam and Lilly Platts, fifth-generation residents of the region — Wyoming and Montana, respectively — Sam Platts & The Plainsmen’s new album West Side (due out 12/2) is a product of the years spent perfecting their sound and vision.

Tracked live over the course of just a few days in an effort to capture energy similar to early recordings in the genre, West Side evokes poetic, story-song imagery and an intentional lack of traditional percussion — archtop guitar and upright bass carry the backbeat throughout the record, complemented by razor-sharp fiddle work and Sam’s rich baritone vocal delivery. Western swing is known for its infectious rhythms and catchy melodies blended with clever wordplay, and The Plainsmen are masters of the craft.

“While it sounds cool to say someone is a ‘cowboy’, which has happened to Sam many times even though he has never said that or identified as that, it’s really important to us that we aren’t labeled as something we aren’t. We’re proud of the western element of our lives, but there’s so much more to it. Sam is fifth-generation Wyoming, and his family homesteaded close to where he grew up. The family ranch held on until Sam was a kid, but they no longer have it. The same is true for me — fifth-generation Gallatin County, Montana, but the family ranch is no longer around. 

It’s a nuanced thing that can be hard to explain to people who are removed from the west and agriculture, but we identify the most as westerners, which is what West Side takes its inspiration from. Western swing isn’t necessarily cowboy music — there is crossover, but it’s more of a cultural/regional pride thing than anything else,” says Lilly Platts (fiddle).