I’d never heard of Sam Baker, though I listen to “Cyprus Avenue” pretty regularly. (For any out of towners, that’s Bill Shapiro’s great Saturday music show on KCUR, our gem of a public radio station in Kansas City.) But some friends had tickets and asked my wife and me along to Sam Baker’s show Saturday at the Folly Theater (our beautifully restored, 112-year-old gem of a venue). I’m so grateful I got to see him. Quite a moving show, by a unique talent. A little haiku tribute:

Sam Baker sings it
Plain, plaintive, talking on pitch
A hushed, dusty twang

Sam Baker plays it
Plucked notes set the atmosphere
For tales to unfold

Sam Baker writes it
Cut, bloodied, scarred — mosaics
From life’s shattered shards

Sam Baker knows it
Meaning’s elusive amid
The beauty and pain

Sam Baker sees it
The smallest details reveal
Emotions so deep

Sam Baker lives it
Stories that haunt, love that heals
Though we’re so broken