theMUSIC

Where You Can Catch
The Samples Brothers in Action

A Mountain State Tradition
for More Than 30 Years

The Samples Brothers Band has been around since the early 1970’s and are well known around the West Virginia festival circuit. The band has been featured at the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, the West Virginia State Folk Festival in Glenville, and the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee for many years.

They have also played many other venues including the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia, the Mariposa Festival in Canada, The Bob Evans Farm Festival in Ohio, and The Heritage Festival in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.

They have also done concerts at colleges including The University of South Carolina, Shepherd College, and Glenville State College.

The band has done six recordings over the years and currently has four CDs on the market. The CDs have sold well into the thousands.

The all-acoustic band consists of brothers Mack, Ted, and Roger Samples, Buddy Griffin on fiddle, and John Preston on bass. Mack’s son, Grayson, sometimes joins the group at festival venues. The music is a blend of old time and bluegrass with an occasional classic from the country music and pop scene.

Many of the songs that the Samples Brothers perform come from the 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s. Perhaps the best way to describe their music is old time, hard driving string music with lots of vocal.

It’s the kind of music not heard on contemporary radio. Some of the tunes on the CDs feature Mack, Ted, and Roger doing some nice harmonic work on three guitars. To read more about the Samples Brothers Band CDs, click here.

Mack is an avid old time square dance caller and always calls the squares at the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston and the West Virginia State Folk Festival in Glenville.

He has also called for many years at the Appalachian String Band Festival at Camp Carver in Fayette County WV. Mack is also a flatfoot dancer (not a clogger) and is often called upon to demonstrate the old time “West Virginia Backstep.”

FREE AUDIO: Sample the Samples!

We have several brief audio sampes (in .mp3 format) that you can listen to here online. For best results, access the pages with a broadband computer connection; a dialup connection might be cause delays in the playback. Click a link below to listen to a 30-second sound bite:

• Troubadour Song from Best of the Samples Brothers
• Pig in the Pen from Slightly North of Dixie
• Handsome Molly from Slightly North of Dixie
• Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man from Slightly North of Dixie
• Last Thing on My Mind from Acoustic Reflections