Sam Lee (UK)

Sam Lee plays a unique role in the British music scene, not only as an acclaimed and original folk performer, but also as a collector of folk songs, a conservationist and as a founding director of The Nest Collective folk club. He draws on the English folk tradition and the songs of the Romani to preserve and renew these vocal traditions, but he also places a strong emphasis on music education, as he does here at the House of Music. This time, the Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter comes to Budapest with his latest release, 2021's Old Wow+.

For Sam Lee, who was a wilderness expert before he became a musician, the turning point came when he met travelling singer Stanley Robertson. Robertson was an influential singer-songwriter among the travelling Romani, who typically lived in caravans on travellers’ sites in the British Isles, and Lee learned many songs from him before his death in 2009. This has both informed Sam Lee's first album and prompted him to delve deeper into the song tradition of travelling singers and British folklore in general. His Mercury Prize-nominated album Ground of Its Own (2012) not only put Lee on the musical map, but it was the first UK album to top the world music charts in Europe. His second LP, The Fade in Time (2015)—released as Sam Lee And Friends with a loose, expanded band line-up—was even better received, if that were possible, and the following year it was voted Artist of the Year at the Songlines Magazine Awards, the most prestigious world music magazine awards. In his songs and arrangements, Lee mixes traditional singing with instruments and arrangements that are not originally part of folk music, but which still fit in with it, and in doing so, he updates the folk music tradition in an original way. As a musician, he is also highly active in organising the London folk concert scene, lecturing on radio and television, as well as teaching in university departments. His third, more chamber-folk album, Old Wow, was released in 2020, and his latest release, Old Wow+, which was released a year later and expanded with six new songs, was produced by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler and features Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser. Coming alone to the House of Music, this will be a quintessential Sam Lee experience.