Sam Lee
It’s over a hundred years since Cecil Sharp started his lifelong mission to collate and preserve English folk music, keen to save an oral tradition drifting from obscurity into extinction. The baton has been handed down through the intervening years, and is now held firmly in the hand of Sam Lee, a regular at Cecil Sharp House. Lee is as much an archivist as singer, investigating and interviewing across the UK and Ireland, uncovering gems as he goes. His latest findings were revealed at the Arts Centre, in a performance almost entirely given over to his Old Wow album, newly re-released after an abortive attempt during the vacuum of the pandemic lockdown.
Fans looking forward to a string of their favourites from his previous two albums had to make do with the likes of Lovely Molly, Bonny Bunch of Roses and Green Grows the Rushes. Otherwise, from the pastoral show opener, The Garden of England and onwards, this was a showcase of what he had gathered from Buffalo O’Conner, so called to distinguish him from all the other Paddy O’Conners, and Romany Freda Black, who turned 93 last summer. Only fragments of The Moon Shines Bright remained in her memory when they spoke, leaving Lee to compose around it. This is what he does – reconstructing, as one might from fragments of Etruscan pottery, making something that honours his source material, while creating something of his own. His is not, to use his phrase, “fiddly” folk music, but something akin to rich, dark chocolate.
Admittedly, he did have a fiddle player on stage with him, which frequently carried the melody, but this was the closest to conventional folk we got, with a sound that owed as much to jazz and contemporary classical. Lee would occasionally join in the instrumentation, sitting down to play his shruti box, but for the most part he was content to use his extraordinarily mellifluous baritone voice, swaying about to the music-making of his ensemble. Lee is a hugely charismatic fellow, with a big stage presence, notwithstanding his winning self-deprecation. It’s easy to see that he was once a dancer – not so much because he moves with particular grace so much as the way he jigs about so unselfconsciously. Imagine Tim Booth of James doing an impression of Andrew McCluskey of OMD and you will get a sense of the infectious abandon with which he immerses himself in the music.
He has an extraordinary ability to create a sense of not just place, but time. He looks back, sometimes centuries, mining music from the past such as the celebratory Soulcake, but also forward, to a world denuded of the natural world he cares so much about. A committed campaigner for the environment, his music is infused with a quiet outrage that is more akin to melancholy than anger. Bearing witness to the almost inevitable extinction of The Turtle Dovewas a song that started in near silence, with just two brushes rubbing against each other. When Lee’s voice rises, keeping pace with the surging piano and funky double bass it is with anguish he sings. Worthywood, performed in a huddle, is a lullaby, but also a lament, of a future he fears is coming just around the corner. An extraordinarily intimate musical moment, with jazz influenced bass crossing swords with the percussive hammering of violin strings, this was an ominous portent of things to come.
The evening was rounded off with an inevitable sing along – never my favourite time of the evening – but he was such a nice bloke one could hardly begrudge him his wish that we, the audience, join in his celebration of returning live music. My only misgiving, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone, was that the expected encore (which I’m sure he promised) didn’t arrive. Usually, it’s all a bit wearisome - waiting for a band to go off, only to be dragged back in pantomime fashion. But this evening was one of such musical excellence and straight forward camaraderie that things seemed to come to an end peremptorily, despite him being on stage for over ninety minutes. I could have handled a couple more songs – Blackbird, perhaps – just to remind us of his inestimable back catalogue.
