Maine Voices Live: Tim Sample

Tim Sample is a Maine native whose unique New England style of humor has gained him a national following. Introducing Tim on ABC’s Good Morning America, Charles Gibson referred to him as, “The man who wrote the book-literally, on Maine humor!” Legendary newsman Charles Kuralt has called Sample “Maine’s Humorist Laureate.”

Describing Tim Sample’s work as “humor” rather than “comedy” is, according to fellow Mainer and bestselling novelist Stephen King a very important distinction:

“He’s a funny guy, you’ll get no argument from me on that score, but no more a comedian than Mark Twain or Artemis Ward. Like, them, Timmy (that’s what I always call him the way folks from up our way are apt to call their friends “dearie”) isn’t acting; he’s just talking in a kind of heightened and gifted way, as folks do when they’re passing on valuable tales about the human condition.”

In addition to TV, radio and numerous popular albums of “down east” humor (five of them released on the legendary Bert and I label), Tim spent eleven years (1993 -2004) as a regular correspondent for the Emmy award winning network television show CBS News Sunday Morning, hosted by Charles Osgood.

Tim has written and/or illustrated over a dozen books, including regional bestsellers Saturday Night at Moody’s Diner and How to Talk Yankee. Tim’s narration work includes award-winning films and audiobooks such as Robert McCloskey’s children’s classic Burt Dow Deep Water Man, Stephen King’s The Sun Dog and Drunken Fireworks and the immensely popular film documentary From Stump to Ship.

In a career spanning four decades Tim has appeared at venues as diverse as The Mall of America, Ocean Reef Club on Key Largo and the Caribou Maine Performing Arts Center.

Tim currently lives “all the way down east” in Calais, Maine with his wife and their brilliant Cairn Terrier, “Cosmo”.

View video from the event below:

Video Recorded November 15, 2016

Ray Routhier has been a features writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram for 22 years, covering entertainment, pop culture and lifestyles. He’s interviewed authors (Tess Gerritsen, Stephen King and Richard Russo among them), as well as filmmakers, actors, politicians, historians, comedians, blueberry rakers, clam diggers, and toll takers. He’s been working for daily newspapers for 30 years, including the Beverly (Mass) Times and the Hartford Courant.

 

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