Music: Sam Lee
Young folkie Sam Lee is helping to keep the folk tradition alive, he tells Jeff Hemmings
Making his mark beyond the ever expanding folk circuit with his Mercury nominated debut album, Ground of Its Own, the London born and bred Sam Lee has spent these last few years collecting, restoring and sharing traditional and ancient music from Great Britain. He’s particularly focused on the Romany Gypsy and Irish traveller communities, who between them have proved to be an ongoing treasure trove of song.
“That word ‘research’ gets used a lot, but it’s not academic, it’s me going off searching for songs. Not just the songs I knew of, but getting to know the people and the stories behind them. It’s me wanting to get under the skin of them, and them wanting to get under the skin of me, and letting them (the songs) come back to life,” says Sam, who is getting ready for a UK tour in support of his second album, The Fade In Time, a collection of songs from the aforementioned communities, but embellished with a musicality that combines the contemporary with the traditional.
“All the songs are traditional folk songs, all based on field recordings,” says Sam, who also heads up the Nest Collective, promoting regular events that incorporate the old with the new. “There are no two versions of a song that are alike, they aren’t like popular songs that are reproduced verbatim everywhere you go. Every singer will have a different version, and part of the excitement for me is finding these rare versions, or even new songs. We all thought these folk songs were the preserve of books and museums. I’m proving that there are vast amounts of prolific singers, and occasionally songs that we haven’t heard before!
“I’m finding that a lot of people who are interested in it are not coming from the folk community, but also are people who are new to folk and suddenly discovering their own heritage. The deal for them is that it is ‘living’; a lot of people assumed it was a dead revival art.
“I half grew up with folk as a kid, around the campfires at summer camps, and I loved the communal singing. It was my musical educational upbringing, singing with friends. And it went from there, wanting to find out about these songs …”
For anyone interested in hearing some of the original field recordings, visit www.songcollectorscollective.co.uk
Sam Lee, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Saturday 28 March, 8pm, £15, 01273 709709, brightondome.org
