Cambridge Folk Festival regular Sam Lee to perform at Storey’s Field Centre

Established folk musician, nature-lover and something of a Cambridge Folk Festival regular, Sam Lee is set to perform at Storey’s Field Centre in the city for the very first time.

The folk custodian will also be releasing a new studio album – his fourth – on 15 March. Titled Songdreaming, the nine-track LP, the follow-up to 2020’s Old Wow, represents the latest stage in the development of Sam’s music, from its roots in traditional folk song to a new way of imagining and performing these old songs.

Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in London, Sam says that although traditional folk songs do feature on the album, it is essentially a collection of original material.

“They almost all start off in their life as traditional folk songs, from different journeys that I’ve had,” he explains, “be that songs I have collected on my song-collecting days out with the Gypsy Traveller community, or songs that I just have come across as a singer and have written out of.

“I’ve basically taken my own journey with them, narratively, and recreated a whole different way of hearing the song, ostensibly.

“They are original because they’ve been taken so far away from their traditional source that many times you wouldn’t even know that they were a traditional – on some of them.

“Some of them I’ve kept much closer to the source; it’s one of those things that it wasn’t really something I thought of, or was concerned with about ‘authenticity’ or keeping true to the folk song.

“In some ways it might just be a snatch of the melody that’s all that remains, sometimes there are words and lines, sometimes I borrow from other folk songs.

“It’s a very collaged and in the way that AI will take ideas and concepts and reimagine... I think that would be more the way it’s happened.”

Sam says he feels a “massive” appreciation in Cambridge for his type of music, and reveals that he often visits the city to do more than just perform.

“I’ve always had a very strong relationship with Cambridge,” he notes. “I’ve done lots of work there and it’s a hotbed for nature conservation as well, with the Attenborough centre [the David Attenborough Building], which I spend a lot of time in.

“Cambridge has always been a place that I’ve gone to learn so much about the world – more than just coming to play. I find myself popping on the train up there quite regularly.

“It’s always a joy to actually be there to offer music, as well as just to come and be part of other projects and that sort of thing.”

How many times has Sam played the Cambridge Folk Festival? “I can’t count – so many times,” he replies, “but also I’ve had a really lovely relationship, that I programme one of the stages there: The Den, which is kind of the emerging artist tent.

“I feel like I’m there every year in a way, but actually I’m only there to play every couple of years – I do it basically every couple of years, or every three years.”

Working once again with producer Bernard Butler and long-term collaborator James Keay, Songdreaming sees the electric guitar added to the mix, alongside the more regular staples of double bass, violin, and percussion.

The album, the cover of which was shot on the River Avon in Wiltshire, also includes some lesser-known instruments such as the nyckelharpa (a Swedish keyed fiddle) and the qanun (an Arabic string instrument).

“I’ve used a zither – the qanun, from Syria, is part of the zither family... I used to tour with the Chinese guqin version, and worked with the hammered dulcimer, so that’s an instrument that I have had rather a good relationship with.

“The nyckelharpa I’ve played with in different projects. I love that instrument and part of that stringed realm of Scandinavia, the Hardanger, I have recorded with them.

“I’ve used a lot of ethnic instruments, if one wants to call them ‘ethnic’, they’re just local instruments in their part of the world… and many of my albums have explored the usage of an international repertoire of sounds and instruments.”

On how the new record differs from his previous work, Sam says: “The work of this album is very much about trying to be more personal in my approach.

“Old Wow I was a little bit of writing myself and I had to do some reinterpreting of folk songs in the way that I’ve done, but this one is very much ‘I’m taking a singular theme and writing about my relationship to nature’.

“It’s a much more gritty and electric album – there’s a lot more electric guitar, which only came in very subtly on the previous album.

“So I think it’s a record that does move me forward in terms of having something very strong to say, and finding that way for me to say it.”

Sam Lee will be performing at Storey’s Field Centre on Thursday, 21 March. Tickets, priced £23.10 in advance (more on the door, if available), can be purchased from storeysfieldcentre.org.uk. For more on Sam, go to samleesong.co.uk.