Sam Lee

Sam Lee operates from London as a singer, visual artist, promoter, educator, actor, and instructor in survival skills. His traditional folk style emerges from the same vigorous lineage that produced British figures including Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, and the Watersons. The artist first surfaced in 2012 with the widely praised debut album Ground of Its Own, which earned a spot on the shortlist for that year’s Mercury Music Award. Later projects Old Wow (2020) and Songdreaming (2024) found Lee partnering with producer Bernard Butler of Suede; alongside arranger James Keay, the pair guided his traditional folk material into unexplored sonic regions. Outside his solo output, Lee functions as a specialist and scholar of traditional music while serving as the driving force behind the eclectic folk club and promotional network the Nest Collective.

A native of North West London, he developed a deep attachment to traditional folk music during a four-year apprenticeship undertaken in his early twenties with Scottish archivist and balladeer Stanley Robertson. In 2010 he launched the folk club The Magpie's Nest, later renamed The Nest Collective. Drawing material from English, Gypsy, Irish, and Scottish traveler communities, Lee issued his first album, Ground of Its Own, in 2012. Produced by Gerry Diver and featuring mixes by Nick Drake engineer John Wood, the record was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Released under the name Sam Lee and Friends, the More for the Rise EP followed in 2014. His second full-length album, Fade in Time, arrived in 2016 and wove Bollywood influences, Polynesian textures, and contemporary classical elements into its framework. For the third album Old Wow, Lee once more enlisted Bernard Butler as producer; the record placed both electric and acoustic guitar at the center and welcomed contributions from the Gloaming’s Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh, multi-instrumentalist composer and producer Cosmo Sheldrake, spoken word poet Dizraeli, and the Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser.

Lee reconvened Butler and longtime collaborator, arranger, and composer James Keay for Songdreaming in 2024. The resulting collection presents an adventurous, pastoral sequence of songs grounded in the natural world and humanity’s complex position within it. Retaining the core instrumentation of double bass, percussion, electric guitar, and violin, the album augments Lee’s eclectic, neo-traditionalist folk approach with Arabic Qanun, Swedish Nyckelharpa, droning soundscapes, and the London-based transgender choir Trans Voices.