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Singing with Nightingales: Folk Songs & The Wild with Sam Lee

Author
The Outdoor Teacher
Published
Mon 14 Apr 2025
Episode Link
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-57-singing-with-nightingales-folk-songs-and-the-wild/

Welcome to Season 8 of The Wild Minds Podcast!

My guest today is Sam Lee, a renowned folk singer, a Mercury Prize-nominated and BBC Folk Award-winning singer, a passionate conservationist, activist, author of the novel, The Nightingale, and a guardian of traditional songs with his latest album, Songdreaming. 

Sam has spent years weaving music with the natural world. In this episode, we dive into his journey, the role of music in rewilding our hearts, and, of course, the captivating song of the nightingale.

In this episode we discuss:

  • What is a folk song?
  • Sam’s journey with trying to re-find songs from the British Isles & recordings made of Gypsy, Scot, Irish and English Travellers,
  • His apprentice to Stanley Robertson and introduction to a whole other way of singing!
  • Sam’s interest in conservation not preservation.
  • How songs hold important truth and how they support us to remember ourselves as a culture and as responsible stewards of the earth.
  • How songs hold an incredible activation of knowledge from the singer's world, and their love and pain.
  • The cascade of impoverishment when songs stop being sung.
  • Ornithology as a form of storytelling & Singing with Nightingales: https://www.singingwithnightingales.co.uk/tickets
  • Making music with Nightingales – the decorators of silence.
  • Accepting silence as a beautiful thing

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-57-singing-with-nightingales-folk-songs-and-the-wild/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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