Happy coincidences

“‘Fabulous reality’ was a phrase a high-school English teacher drummed into our heads in a writing class,” says Scott Samuels of the title to his upcoming fourth full-length. “It’s also referenced in a song on the CD, ‘Inconvenient Truth,’ a song which has nothing to do with climate change. Fabulous realities are special, one-of-a-kind moments that are like strange, happy coincidences that are almost surreal. Like the kind you have when you fall in love with someone.”

The album features seven songs, including five original tunes, ranging from acoustic ballads (“What You Really Need”) to power-pop (“In the Moment”) to straight-ahead rock (“Insecurity”). Samuels also covers Gene Loves Jezebel’s “Motion of Love,” and five-time San Diego Music Awards nominee Marie Haddad (vocals, keys, glockenspiel) appears in a ukulele-centric duet version of the old Frank and Nancy Sinatra tune “Something Stupid.”

The album will drop this week at the tail end of a ten-city tour taking him from St. Louis to NYC. “Chicago will be my fourth show at Uncommon Ground,” he says enthusiastically. “The last two were sold-out shows, and I’ll be pairing up with Flood Brother Bernie, a great guitarist from the Flood Brothers of Milwaukee, with whom I’ve done several shows.”

The album-release party is set for March 31 at downtown’s House of Blues, where “I’ll be doing a Herman’s Hermits cover and a Herb Alpert tune as well, plus a new original song I wrote for the ukulele that came to me in a dream as a Kinks song I’d never heard before.”