Formerly a visual artist, teacher of wilderness survival skills and burlesque dancer, Sam Lee jacked in all of these colourful careers to learn folk songs. Studying under the great balladeer and traveller Stanley Robertson, Lee gathered scores of traditional songs, and Ground of Its Own is Lee’s interpretation of eight of them.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, he sourced songs directly from oral tradition rather than via book research. Many are from gypsy and traveller communities and, in the sleevenotes, Lee is careful to credit the families from whom he learned them.
It means his feel for the songs is obvious. His delivery is intimate, and he inhabits the stories totally, letting the songs breathe into him rather than imposing his own personality onto them. However, many listeners simply won’t take to these vocals. His modern London twang is more akin to Damon Albarn than to a ballad singer.
