Those who know nothing of the name, the man, or the songs, might wish to read on awhile…

heroically leaping herrings, Sam is well-known for his good leather boots

Sam Lee is a singer who knows where his songs come from. He works to turn dry old archive recordings into breath, ears, and living celebration.

He is a lineage-holder (with a silver ring to prove it). He was the last apprentice to Stanley Robertson, Scotland’s Traveller Song-King, who taught Sam the songs, the meanings, and the magic of his art and experience. Stanley died last year, God rest him (see obituary), leaving young Sam to maintain the traditions with which he has been entrusted.

Sam has a uniquely thorough grounding in the Folk Traditions of these islands. He worked for years at Cecil Sharp House, the English Folk HQ (see EFDSS). It was through a chance meeting with Sam’s (then) boss, Malcolm, in a Lewes pub, that we met with Sam, and were happily enthused. Our friendship has led us into recording sessions in Cecil Sharp House, to performances in the South Bank Centre, and has seen Sam join us en-walk, on sundry happy occasions.

Sam as MC, the South Bank Centre

An inspiring organizer, Sam’s motif seems to be ‘example and enthusiasm’, which people are always willing to follow. He puts on weekly gigs and sessions in London and beyond, with his (award-winning) collective “The Magpie’s Nest”. Last thing we heard, he was touring the USA. If there was ever a man to watch in the British Folk Scene, it is Sam Lee.

Sam is also a bushcraft expert, a thrivalist and outdoors man. This makes him even better company when out walking. Once, when walking alone beside a frozen Scottish river , he saw a mighty trout beneath the surface ice, and by tying his knife to a fallen bough, he improvised the spear with which he took the fish’s life, and ate it. We admire.

Wood Ant Feasting

Sam seems to agree with us that the most fitting place for traditional British songs is deep in the landscape that produced them. Concrete and car-horns are not the finest folk accompaniment, but birds of the field, wind through woods, and rhythmic sea-tide, most certainly are. These are the contexts that birthed the old songs, the invisible background to all ballads of Britain.

We are glad to have met Sam Lee, whose works so happily co-mingle with our own. If you’re in London, be sure to seek him out. If you’re far from there, his myspace site might suffice…

The Recordings

This winter, in the depths of the coldest snap, when every edge was smoothed and toothed by the enveloping ice, Sam came to visit us. His company was warming welcome, and he brought forth song, great slabs of the stuff, with which to cheer our cockles.

big teeth icy water

Here are those songs. The recordings speak amply for themselves. Please enjoy them greatly.

Van Dieman’s Land

This tells the tale of poachers. condemned to Tasmania, for trying to supplement family diets with the forbidden flesh of a rich man’s Game Park. The background sound is the rain, falling on our winter home, and the drone comes from Sam’s Shruti Box, an Indian hand-organ.

The Cherry Tree Carol

This song combines the lyric made famous by Shirley Collins, with the old carol of the Holly and the Ivy. We like it very much.

The Clydeswater

This is a Stanley Robertson classic, as told and sung by his protege Sam.

Robin Hood and the Pedlar

A Robin Hood ballad, from the tradition that placed Hood and his merry men in Scotland. In this tale the outlaws are bested by an anonymous peddlar, who they discover (after a sound thrashing) is a fighting man of some repute, sent to Scotland as exile from his own lands. This is one of a great body of Robin Hood ballads. See Child Ballads for more details.

Gower Wassail

This is but a verse of the Gower wassailing song, sung to bless the Orchards, to celebrate the harvest, and to refresh the social contract in which its participants were living. It is a song very much worth learning. We love the choral ‘fal-dee-daddy’ especially…

Henry Martin

A wonderful song of piracy and treachery, where the English do not come off best, but sink sink sink.

The Sheepstealer

A final song, which describes a poor man’s cut-throat economic aspirations.

Ed had spotted them as they drove through town in their van, and had run after them, as he recognized them from Small World Festival. But they out-sped his best pace.

In Penzance, a few weeks later, we met a girl called Daisy, who sang a song about magpies, that was most excellent.  She knew the girls, got us their number, and we arranged to meet at a gig in Falmouth, a few days later.

The gig was great, a mad looming dance in a packed pub, and the band The Raggy Trousered Philanthropists, were incredible to enjoy.

That night we danced possessed, and we met many fine Falmouth people. We walked back to stay with the people we had met, and all sat for an hour, on the way home, singing and chanting under a railway bridge that gave incredible acoustics.

Overtone singing was particularly effective. Two lads, also walking home from the pub, couldn’t work out how the noise was coming. “We heard it right down the street…” They initially are a little shy (you wouldn’t have guessed it) about coming to sit with us all, but the girls shouted them over, which they couldn’t refuse.

Susi Ro and Ayla are two most gifted and generous musicians. They sing together, with a guitar and sometimes a piano. Each girl writes her own songs and tunes, which the other supports and augments. Individually, they are amazing, and together phenomenal. They are regular buskers, and caused a mighty show when the international tall ships festival was in Falmouth. All the world’s sailors marched up the street together, and each crew had someone run to them, to lift, twirl and dance with them.

www.myspace.com/susieroandayla

Hear for yourself:

The two of them have walked with us at different times on this journey, and will do so again. Their trust in people, and music, is intense, and you will doubtless see them play at a festival near you this summer.

If you want to purchase a copy of their stunning debut album, please click the button below, (it is their button, not ours)

Other peoples’ words will end this best:

‘these soulful songstresses will astound you with their exquisite vocal harmony and enchanting presence’

“voices like caramel and velvet”

‘angels kissing the back of your neck’

xx

Lucy is a singer/songwriter from the Canterbury scene, evoking the sound of the great female american singer-songwriters of the 60′s and 70’s. Her music is a beautiful and ecclectic mix of folk rock and country blues and she has developed a growing fanbase through her self-penned acoustic songs.

Taking inspiration from the likes of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and PJ Harvey, her style is one some find difficult to pigeon hole. Recognition for her songwriting has seen her reach the semi finals of the BBC Radio 2 young folk award in 2006/2007.

Keep track of her here on www.myspace.com/lucykitt.

Listen to her track “Gone” here:

We sung before Thistletown, again ignoring the offered mics to try and fill the room with the sound of voices without translation. It was a good go, and people were happy to listen and bob along.

Then Thistletown played, a cloud-borne fairy castle of twisting medieval dreams.

We expect every reviewer enjoys writing about this band, as they permit such flowery prose.

Beside this, they are exemplary musicians, instrumentalists of rare quality and playfulness. We had a great night, meeting the trad youth of Kernow.

Based in Falmouth, Ben and Lydia gave us their number, to call them when we walked back to Falmouth. We had avoided Falmouth on the way to Penzance, as we had engaged on a 46 mile day and night march to get to Penwith. We took it all a lot slower on our way out.

So in Falmouth we rung the number, and spent beautiful days with the band, on their boat and in their other haunts.

They are apparently now disbanded. They met success with the backing of a Guardian journalist, who was given money by the paper to set up a cottage record label. But the projection into the world of album sales and national reviews was perhaps uneasy. They were billed as every hippy’s dream, the bearded and ethereal answer to modern woes, and given high profile performances, and then there was the money issues to deal with.

The band has now branched into separate endeavours, which although sad to hear, will doubtless bring new and mighty fruit in the near future.

Their album, Rosemarie, is a beautiful disc of Cornish magic. Bag a copy, if you can.

These boys are a gang of sincerely brilliant musicians, dedicated and experimental. Remember the Canterbury Scene? Here it is.

They make progressive, intelligent, raucous and funky psychedelia…they are a pleasant nightmare for the genre-giver.

They have released a fine EP, called Kingdoms of Experience, and are doubtless to be soon pressing an album.

Syd Arthur are another band that you will soon hear more about. They will be all over the festivals this summer, and their sounds and rhythms will be certain to shunt many an audience into throbbing dances.

www.myspace.com/sydarthur

This was the band with which Ed and Ginger first went funny.

Deservingly popular on the UK ska scene, their live performances were legendary, with the audience dripping off the ceiling in tumults of moshing mayhem.

They are no longer playing together, but are always contemplating a reunion tour, sometime soon, perhaps tomorrow…

They released a few Eps, and one album, called ‘Smoothing Away the Horrors of Indigestion.”

Here are some tracks:

www.myspace.com/yewileshome

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