Sam Edelston

Sam Edelston is on a mission to make fretted dulcimers as popular—and as badass—as guitars and keyboards. He is one of just a handful of performers actively promoting them as a featured instrument in rock and pop music.

​

Fretted dulcimers, more commonly called mountain dulcimers, come from the traditional world of folk music. When people ask how he came to that instrument, Sam says, “Kicking and screaming.” He was into fingerstyle guitar and hammered dulcimer (a low-tech ancestor of the piano, which happens to share the “dulcimer” last name). Fretted dulcimers usually have only 3 strings, and they typically don’t have frets for all of the musical notes—so for 30 years, Sam thought they were too limited to be interesting.

​

But his life changed in 2004 when he became the founding chair of the Nutmeg Dulcimer Festival in Connecticut. He decided to “get acquainted with the other side of the family,” bought a fretted dulcimer, and within a couple of hours he came up with decent arrangements of Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow” and T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong.” This was his eureka moment.

​

Just as “the Folk” played the music that was around them—the music their kin and their neighbors played—Sam plays the music that’s around him: Everything from bluegrass to bossa nova, Sousa to Gilbert & Sullivan, Tin Pan Alley, some of his several hundred original songs, and especially the many flavors of rock music from the 1950s to today. On both acoustic and electric dulcimers, Sam often makes his three strings sound like multiple instruments, or even an entire band, earning him a reputation as a creative force and an innovator. His covers of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” went viral, and his video of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” is shown at the renowned Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ.

​

He has performed and taught at dulcimer festivals across the US, including Kentucky Music Week, the Colorado Dulcimer Festival, Dulcimer Day in Duluth (MN), the Lagniappe Dulcimer Fête (LA), and numerous festivals throughout the Northeast. His scheduled 2020 West Coast debut at the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering (CA) was kiboshed by the pandemic—and turned into Sam being the first featured artist at an online dulcimer festival. He is also a frequent instructor at the online QuaranTUNE Dulcimer Festival, and he has taught online at the Dutchland Dulcimer Gathering, North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association Virtual Festival, Stephen Foster Dulcimer Retreat, and Chromatic Dulcimer Summit. He is a frequent performer for The Folk Project (NJ) and has been featured by the Folk Music Society of New York. Sam has played to rock audiences at the famed Bitter End in New York City and the FabFest Charlotte (NC) Beatles festival. His 2025 schedule includes appearances in Connecticut, Massachusetts, upstate New York, North Carolina, and Ohio, with more to come.

​

In 2024, Sam released his debut album, MAKING WAVES, the first-ever record to feature a dulcimer fronting a rock band covering (mostly) classic rock and pop songs.

​

Sam’s vision is clear: He wants the world to see the dulcimer’s cool factor. While respecting its beautiful backwoods Appalachian traditions, he believes the dulcimer deserves to come out of the mountains and into the public eye, playing the People’s music. He says, “With half as many strings as a guitar and no mistake notes, it’s the most logical first stringed instrument. There ought to be millions of young people begging their parents for one for their next birthday.”

​

Sam Edelston isn’t just playing the dulcimer—he’s rewriting what it can be.