That one of the dates on Sam Lee’s current songdreaming tour of the UK should be at the Old Woollen seems entirely fitting. The tour takes its name from the title of Lee’s latest album, a collection of new songs repurposed from traditional material. The Old Woollen is a relatively recent entertainment venue that has been restored from a derelict mill building which dates from 1830. Both musician and location conjoin here in their honour of the past and supreme ability to sympathetically relocate that period to the present.
Sam Lee is many, many things. He is a folk singer, conservationist, activist, radio host, promoter, and live performer, though perhaps above all he is a collector and arranger of songs. This evening he evidences a number of those many talents. In respect of the songs he and his superb band – comprising Louis Campbell (guitar), Joseph O’Keefe (violin), Joshua Green (drums), and Rob Dimbleby (piano) – play 13 in total, including a richly deserved encore of ‘Lovely Molly.’
The dozen songs prior to the encore embrace many of the ancient themes of folk music, through life’s simple pleasures (a tumultuous ‘Aye Walking Oh’ and a delightful ‘Meeting Is A Pleasant Place’) to love (‘Sweet Girl McRee’) and death (‘Lay This Body Down’) whilst also highlighting a number of Sam Lee’s numerous passions and causes including birds (‘Bushes and Briars’ with its ode to the nightingale), the right to roam (the sublime opener ‘Green Mossy Banks’) and ecology/nature (‘The Garden of England (Seeds of Love)’). Fresh new life is breathed into these traditional tunes through Lee’s humanity, compassion and innovative arrangements as he remodels them all for the modern world.
Through his music, Sam Lee conveys to us all a wide and diverse range of ideas as to what folk music can mean. The songs themselves are united by a strong sense of community spirit and shared purpose. And in their wider salutary message about the attrition being caused by mankind to the natural world, within these songs Sam Lee also draws a parallel with the recent decimation of the live music industry and the need for us all to pull together to arrest this decline. It is a message to which we should all pay heed before it becomes too late.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Sam Lee at the Old Woollen
