Sam Lee and Friends - The Phoenix, Exeter, 28th April, 2015

Privileged Paradox

This was an exquisite gig, Sam Lee and Friends playing a solo set [no support] in two wonderful segments. There were songs from Lee’s first album Ground of its Own, reviewed here, and from his recent second, The Fade in Time, reviewed here.

This is folk music at its most traditional and modern, nothing paradoxical in the re-presenting of songs Lee searches out and learns from the gypsy/traveling community largely across the British Isles and then translates through contemporary arrangements to continue their transmission beyond the oral/sung tradition that would otherwise diminish over time. Even if that tradition could survive, Lee and Friends are introducing this to a new and wider audience, and we are privileged to receive.

The contemporary arrangements I mention are themselves rooted in tradition and modernity – courting contradiction again – but this is embraced by the instruments used and the interpretations played. Sam Lee himself on shruti box, when playing it, provides an amplified resonance of sound as it pulses beneath melodies; Jon Witten on Mongolian dulcimer taps out delicate soundscapes, provides plaintive to upbeat backdrops on electric piano, and plucks and strums on ukulele; acclaimed violinist Flora Curzon provides beautiful defined melodic lines as well as deeply atmospheric strokes, and percussionist Josh Green delivers both touch and considerable energy through his various rhythms, including the range of a tabla tone to a booming on his bass gourd.

I stress the above to celebrate this dynamic band but also because on record with, for example, the addition of jazzy trumpet and other, the arrangements are expansive and full of depth when complementing the traditional songs. It was natural to wonder how this would be matched in a live set with a smaller collective, but the performance was as refined to powerful as on record. For example, Jonny O’ The Brine which opens Lee’s latest album is on record full of trumpet and effects; live at the Phoenix it was as fulsome in the energy and volume produced on stage – Green’s driving beat contributing considerably here.

Sam Lee’s vocal is majestic: sonorous clarity perhaps best describing, though it quite simply has to be heard. There is an excellent article on Sam here which provides huge detail about his life growing up and the passion now for seeking out and archiving on record and in performance the songs he sings. Sam himself informs us of elements of this at the gig, for example, when explaining the personal significance of a song like Jews Garden that is played, and the background story to the beautiful ballad The Moon Shone on My Bed Last Night, also played. Other gems performed often with background stories – well, every single song shone – were The Ballad of George Collins, Bonny Bunch o’ Roses, Moorlough Maggie, Phoenix Island, Airdog, and the sweet Lovely Molly which was sung a cappella, sans microphones, as an encore.

If you can catch Sam Lee and friends on tour, you absolutely must. It goes without saying you must also buy his/their records.

Sam Lee at The Phoenix, Exeter, 6th February, 2020

Lovely

It was again a distinctly pleasing experience to see Sam Lee perform live, and again at The Phoenix in Exeter – the third time I have seen him there. For my reviews of other gigs and his albums, go here.

Lee and band began their first set with The Garden of England (Seeds of Love), the opener from latest release Old Wow. This was followed by the immense Spencer the Rover, oft recorded and memorable, and particularly resonant to me loving, as I do, John Martyn’s version. Lee has to a degree divested it of its prettier melodies from other performers [The Copper family’s is rougher edged but still beautiful] and focused in his preamble before singing on the troubled mind in its narrative

And he had been much reduced

Which caused great confusion

which implicitly [or maybe more directly] foregrounds our increasingly contemporary recognition of mental health issues. And quite right. It is such a plaintive/sentimental song, where this returned wanderer is greeted with the prittle prattling stories of the children running around

As valiant a man as ever left home.

We were engaged in a sing-along with the wonderful Phoenix Island from his 2015 album The Fade in Time, and there were other visits to this album. From his current album there were Soul Cake, Sweet Sixteen, and Turtle Dove, this latter – and others – presented passionately in the context of climate extinction, with Lee telling us how the turtle dove and the nightingale would both likely be vanished from the UK within 25 years.

Lee intersperses his singing with these introductions, explanations and expansions. His wrapping around some songs the notions of their sacredness and profanity [this is a shorthand encapsulation!] makes us thoughtful about his deep thoughtfulness. It certainly should do.

There was a gorgeous return to The Fade in Time with Airdog, and the song finishing the second set was the sublime Lovely Molly.

And I think that is where I’ll conclude, summing up the whole, yet again: Lovely.

Sam and fine band in rehearsal - Jon Whitten Mongolian Dulcimer, Piano & Ukelele; Josh Green : Percussion; Flora Curzon : Violin; Sam Lee : Vocals, Jews Harp & Shruti Box:

 

Sam Lee - The Fade in Time, album review

Gorgeous Folk Archeology

When I last wrote of Sam Lee here, I used words I thought I would use again in this review of his latest release – ‘baritone’; ‘sonorous’ – so I just have, and obviously to describe his wonderful folk vocal. In his previous Ground of its Own, Lee married this with traditional folk songs and modern musical affectations, usually electronic, and some dissonance in the production to offset and make ‘new’ the beauty of folk singing and melody.

This is exactly the multi-layering on this set of songs Lee has researched and found within the gypsy and traveling communities in the UK as well as others from much farther afield geographically and culturally. I think there is far less of that dissonance on this album, though the modern patternings are more intense, as on superb opener Jonny O the Brine where the tabla and jazz trumpet are powerful over-rides. Second Bonny Bunch of Roses begins with a scratched operatic recording before the perfect low tone of Lee’s vocal brings in the beautiful song, finger-plucked acoustic guitar in the background, flute rising from the distance as the layers build which will include fiddle and a re-emergence of that operatic recording: it is a jamboree of eclectic sounds.

Third Blackbird is simply gorgeous as a song and vocal. It is again enhanced, this time by crashing cymbals, piano strikes and banjo plucks and horn accompaniments, also building. I guess the ‘traditional folk’ purists would argue that the core song gets lost in this musical modernity; those of us who like the amalgam of such production exploration with folk melody accept the combining. The ‘true’ purists are, presumably, those from whom Lee has learnt these actual songs, and one also presumes they accept the re-workings. As a folk archaeologist, Lee is discovering these songs from a source that might not manage to secure them through the oral tradition as well as he can in this recorded permanence. As if to remind of the discovering, fourth Lord Gregory begins with a sample of recorded interview as Lee finds out about this song – a song wrapped in gorgeous brass and vocal support as it progresses.

One of the more energetic renditions on the album is ninth Willy O where tabla again drives the beat, cymbals crash once more, whistles and Jews harp plant authenticities, fiddles create filmscore-like tensions, and other orchestrations swell. This is followed by Airdog where just voice and piano begin slowly to set a contrasting tempo, though the melody and voice beautiful again, and when the build comes, it is like so much else on this album – gorgeous - as I have already stated and will do once more as I think this single word genuinely articulates the beautiful whole, and yet again when this is followed by the [g-word here] Lovely Molly with Lee and choir coalescing in pure folk beauty.

Sam Lee Singing with Nightingales – Phoenix Theatre, Exeter, 9th May, 2018

New Ode to the Nightingale

It is just over three years since I saw Sam Lee performing, again at the Phoenix, and that genuinely outstanding gig was one of the more memorable I have ever attended, reviewed here [and within that, references to other reviews of his music].

I expected more of the same last night, but I was in for a shock surprise – I hadn’t really paid attention to what was on offer, though I did know about his nightingale project – yet what an extraordinary, pleasing shock it was.

Instead of the musical ensemble I was expecting, in that ignorance, there were just two other musicians with Lee: Adrian Freedman playing the shakuhachi, a bamboo Zen flute of Japan, and Chartwell Dutrio playing the mbira which is an ancient instrument consisting of at least 22 metal keys mounted on a wooden soundboard, in this case like a gourd. 

These three had never played together before, and the night was in every sense an improvisation, especially the extraordinary event after the interval. Before this, and throughout the night, there was much talk about the nightingale and the wider project, based on a farm at Knepp in Sussex where the resident ecologist, Penny Green, works and records the singing of this melodic bird. Lee rang her on his mobile at the beginning of the gig to talk about the chances of hearing the singing that night, to be played later into the theatre live.

It was already in full voice.

But more of this in a moment. Lee opened the evening’s music by singing solo Spencer the Rover, a beautiful resonant delivery as one expects from him, and a treat for me, loving the version that John Martyn sang. Both Adrian and Chartwell had solo spots, explaining their instruments, and it was a fascinating learning about and experiencing of their respective superlative playing: and with Chartwell also singing – at one point later performing throat singing.

All wonderful. In the metaphor of a camp-fire setting – so lights dimmed and an informal presentation throughout, including sing-alongs for those inclined – Lee talked more about the ecological realities of the nightingales’ reducing springtime habitats in England – no longer in Cornwall, probably not in Devon, a few in Dorset and Somerset, but mostly, when here now, in the south east of England – and he told the story of how the nightingale was given its voice by the She-god of his telling it. There was also a recollection of the BBC’s first ever live outside broadcast of cellist Beatrice Harrison playing along to the singing of the nightingale in her garden in 1924 – an event, we are told, that was set up and recorded on the 18^th May when the nightingale didn’t appear, and then again on the 19^th when it also didn’t appear, so an American, Charles Kellogg, a vaudeville performer who imitated bird songs, was brought in to mimic the singing of the nightingale – and it struck me that this may well be one of the first ever and genuine Fake News stories/events!

To the extraordinary musical event of the night – after the interval, Lee rang Green back in Sussex and to cut to the chase, the nightingale was singing, singing in glorious variety and volume and this was transferred into the theatre through the PA system. It was genuinely beautiful to hear, the darkened setting of our sitting, and all that had preceded, preparing us for the experience in as ‘natural’ a way as one could – the paradox of this technology making just such an event possible being one of the most perfect imaginable.

...as if we were

In terms of music, Lee began with his shruti box and a low hum/murmur to merge with its sonorous sound and accompany the nightingale’s virtuoso melodies. Freedman and Dutrio played their own solo accompaniments and it is impossible to fully embrace that improvised and empathetic playing with words, but it was, as I have said, genuinely extraordinary. Freedman’s shakuhachi – and he had a range to play – obviously had the most inherent ‘match’ to the birdsong, but it was on their last ensemble jam that this trio fully communed with the nightingale and the audience, some again who sang along to the mantra Dutrio devised which was a beautiful descending melody. 

 

A unique gig and I am so pleased to have attended.

Some Awe's Best of 2015 - Top Twenty

Some Awe dressed for the occasion

Top Twenty

Steve Tilston – Truth to Tell

Sam Lee - The Fade in Time

Shelby Lynne – I Can’t Imagine

Dave Rawlings Machine - Nashville Obsolete

Chris Stapleton – Traveller

Trembling Bells - The Sovereign Self

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Arabs In Aspic - Victim Of Your Father's Agony

Trixie Whitley – Porta Bohemica

The Delines - Scenic Sessions

Kurt Elling - Passion World

Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

Ryley Walker - Primrose Green

Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free

Rickie Lee Jones - The Other Side of Desire

David Ramirez – Fables

James Taylor - Before This World

Eliza Neals - Breaking And Entering

Fernando - Leave The Radio On

Keith Richards - Crosseyed Heart

This is it - what you have all been waiting for! Oh, it was tonight's party? Sorry, I got that wrong. But here it is all the same.

Probably no surprises to those who follow this blog, and not to me [you'd think obviously] but I am a little by how singer-songwriter/solo artist oriented it is, and how predominantly un-heavy, especially with so much retro-rock listened to, liked and reviewed this year on the blog - but the prefix retro gives that factor away, I think.

I thought Sam Lee would likely lead this year's list, and his album is sublime, but it goes to Tilston because, as with many of the choices, there is often a history within the many elements of deciding. His 1976 album Songs from the Dress Rehearsal is one of the finest ever recorded, and this year's Truth to Tell is on such a par with this and I am so impressed with the sustained quality of that writing and performing: I saw both Tilston and Lee live this year, and both of these gigs also inform the deciding.

The 'heavy' element - missing in more obvious ways - is provided by Trembling Bells whose heavy folk is brilliant, reminding of those early 70s moves to this, and I am still sorry I missed them playing locally. Two of the tracks on Alabama Shakes' album are some of the best this year [and Sexwitch is another fine loud band] and Arabs in Aspic get a pick because of the brilliance of their retro leanings.

Trixie Whitley deserves more recognition for her stunning vocal, and both Shelby Lynne and Rickie Lee Jones produced further quality work this year, though they too have my long-liking history informing their selection. 

Eliza Neals is the new kid on the block, and how she rocks. Fernando too - though he is a seasoned performer - is selected for his re-emergence on the scene with such a fine solo album I am yet to review. I also met him very briefly when seeing The Delines in Bristol, and he is such a warm and friendly person/musician and his love of playing deserves its recognition. 

Elling will always appeal to me; Taylor too, and though his album is in many ways predictable, that is what one wants/expects, and Stretch of the Highway is such a funky song!

I won't write about all, but I should mention that Chris Stapleton also almost made it to the 'top', his album such a gritty as well as beautiful set of songs.