Since bursting on to the folk scene at the end of the Noughties, Sam Lee has blazed a trail as an outstanding singer and song collector. He’s also been the driving force behind the eclectic, award-winning folk club The Nest Collective, which has brought traditional music to all kinds of new stages and venues, as well as the founder of a burgeoning song collectors’ movement that inspires a new generation of performers to draw on living source singers rather than books and records.
Lee is a 21st-century artist, collecting new versions of old songs on his iPhone and laptop, but his repertoire is steeped in the reek and smoke of folk history and lore, its tales of love, parting, exile and murder bound by a sympathetic magic still resonant today, parting the veil on vivid scenes from our islands’ deep history. Sam Lee and his band comprise multi-instrumentalist Jon Whitten on dulcimer, piano and ukulele, violinist Flora Curzon, and percussionist Josh Green with Sam himself playing the shruti box and Jew’s harp.
This event is part of Manchester Folk Festival – an urban folk festival. It takes place over 18-21 October 2018, in an around HOME and the city centre. Over the autumn weekend, they present an exhilarating range of events, with the spotlight on English folk.
