New Exhibit on Display—Spotlight: Sam Hinton Collection
Learn more about Sam Hinton through the Spotlight: Sam Hinton Collection exhibit, which explores Hinton’s life and career as a performing musician and naturalist –– including some unique overlaps of the two.
Folk singer, marine biologist, museum director, folklorist, actor, and artist –– Sam Hinton wore many hats throughout his life. Yet, his love of playing and sharing music remained at the forefront. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1917 and raised in Crockett, Texas, Hinton demonstrated a lifelong passion for music.
From purchasing his first harmonica at age five to forming The Texas Trio with his two sisters, Hinton’s early musical experiences shaped his interest in sharing folk music with a wider audience. Hinton appeared on radio and television in his twenties and studied marine biology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
After graduating, Hinton held several naturalist professional appointments at the Desert Museum (Palm Springs, CA), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (San Diego, CA), and the University of California at San Diego. Simultaneously, he continued his performing career, recording for the Library of Congress in 1947 and with notable record labels, including Columbia (1950), Decca (1952–1957), and Smithsonian Folkways (1960s).
Co-author and illustrator of two books on marine research, Exploring Under the Sea (1957) and Common Seashore Animals of Southern California (1961), Hinton wrote a regular newspaper column for the San Diego Union called “The Ocean World.” He also founded the San Diego Folk Song Society in 1957 and co-hosted a thirteen-part series on folk music for the National Education Television network (1970–1971).
During his sixty-five-year musical career, Hinton gave thousands of concerts across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe and recorded a dozen solo albums with approximately 200 songs. He made his final public appearance at the 2002 San Diego Folk Heritage Festival, which has been permanently renamed the Sam Hinton Folk Heritage Festival. Before he passed in 2009, Hinton and his family donated his collection of folk instruments to the Museum of Making Music to ensure that his musical legacy would remain with the local community. The exhibit features several harmonicas and jaw harps, as well as a whale-shaped vessel flute, Carvin acoustic guitar, an International Music Corporation ukelin, and more. Spotlight: Sam Hinton Collection will be on display until March 2027.
“One of the most important things about folk songs that makes them different from other kinds of songs is that there is never just one way to do them; everybody can sing them in his own way, and nobody can say that there is any ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about it.” ––Sam Hinton, Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts Liner Notes
