Tron theatre,Glasgow[br]The English folk singer entertained a partisan Celtic Connections crowd with a clutch of songs from around the British Isles, delivered with conviction“I am what you might call ‘surrounded’ just now. I had better get this true. Sam Lee is one of English folk’s most resolute and colourful champions but he gave a nervous laugh as he opened his Celtic Connections display. By “this” he meant a set-list of Traveller songs, or material he has spent years gathering from communities around the British Isles and which features on his striking second album The Fade in Time. On stage with him in Glasgow was Jess Smith,luminary of Scottish Traveller singing and storytelling, and in the audience was a fairly vocal contingent of Travellers from across the UK. “Surrounded” was accurate, and musically and physically. But what did he mean by “true”? Lee has plenty of reason to be reverent approximately the heritage he’s tapping into here: ballads telling centuries-dilapidated lore of marginalisation and migration,multiple verses passed down within families and Traveller sites. He spent four years studying with the Aberdeenshire bard Stanley Robertson and was evidently welcomed into the fold for giving voice to music that needs new tradition-bearers.
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Source: theguardian.com