During lockdown I discovered the music of British folk singer Sam Lee and became a bit obsessed. The boredom of lockdown turned me into a teenager, complete with full on, fangirl phases, and this was 100% one of these phases. I spoke to my friend Alice about it on one of our many South London lockdown walks, which were peppered with confessional, sad and/or funny chats. “He’s amazing and he improvises with nightingales!” I said. “Who are they?” she asked, wondering whether they were an improv group who did ‘Harolds’ or narrative shows, “No nightingales! Actual nightingales - as in the birds!” We laughed for ages about this misunderstanding, doubled over in Peckham park enjoying a much needed glimmer of silliness in the lockdown gloom.
I listened to Sam Lee’s album Old Wow again and again, devoured every interview with him that I could find, and even bought his book about nightingales entitled “The Nightingale”. Then as incredible luck would have it I won a competition to go and watch Sam Lee improvising with nightingales (the birds not the group) in Sussex. I went with my other friend Alice (North London Alice as she shall now be known) and it was a unique experience of beauty, waiting, and extreme temperatures. Nightingales don’t abide by a call-sheet, they’ll turn up when they want and sometimes they won’t turn up at all. It’s incredible that they get re-booked, but they do. After listening to Sam Lee sing unaccompanied folk songs around a campfire (we sat too close and I was genuinely afraid my jeans might catch alight) all 35 of us walked in silence and complete darkness through the woods to a field where it was hoped the nightingales would be. The walk was magical. No one was allowed to use torch light or phone light and it was pitch black, so we just had to listen, let our eyes adjust, and trust that we would find our way. It was like a movement exercise on a giant scale, and there was something beautiful about the shared experience of a group of strangers finding their way using the ancient human abilities of deep listening, trust and ensemble work.
Once in the field we all crouched down in the damp grass (from extreme heat to extreme cold) facing in the direction where nightingales sometimes took up position. Eventually one came along and began singing. Nightingales are unique in the variety of calls they have and it’s this that makes them so interesting to collaborate with. A nightingale makes 1,500 different sounds, arranges them into over 250 musical phrases and will uses motifs as well. As the nightingale began singing, Sam Lee (on Jew’s harp, Shruti box and vocals) and an incredible classical cellist began making musical offers from behind us. Sometimes it really did seem like the nightingale was yes-anding the humans, or responding in some way! At other times it seemed like the nightingale was resolutely singing their own song. Unfortunately there was no way of giving the nightingale any side-coaching…
Jokes aside it was an incredibly beautiful experience. It was a privilege to be a guest in the nightingale’s realm, sitting in that big expanse of field, in the early hours, hearing sensitive human music behind us, and confident bird song in front of us. After we made our way back to the campsite, North London Alice and I slept in a tent but I neglected to bring a ground mat. I woke up three hours later bone cold and walked around outside searching for patches of sunlight to stand in like a cat.
I come from a folky family. Growing up my Dad would sing and play the harmonica, and the penny whistle at a folk night in one of my town’s many local pubs. My friend Amy and I used to join him sometimes. She’d play her guitar which at the time seemed to swamp her, and we’d sing Nanci Griffith songs. Nowadays I go to Lancaster and sing in improvised musicals and Amy goes to America and sings with Noel Gallagher. But who’s living the more glamorous life really hey?!
My childhood is decorated with singing; singing with my sister while washing up, my Dad singing while running the bath, everyone singing at Christmas. Many years ago after my Grandpa’s funeral, we gathered at my Grandparent’s house & I recall seeing my Dad, Aunt and Uncle standing in a circle singing Carrikfergus in the dining room. It is a heartbreaking Irish folk song of incredible beauty.
Traditionally Folk music was created, learnt and passed down orally, so to my mind it’s got improvisation in its bones. Folk singers interpreted songs in their own way; changing words, adding flourishes and grace notes - they weren’t beholden to keeping the songs rigid and the same each time, in the way that some genres of music require. It was only when the song collectors came along during Victorian times, and wrote folk songs down, that it all became formalised. Prior to that there was no sheet music. So it felt like a perfect fit for me to make an improvised folk musical. These Folk is an improvised folk musical I do with Justin Brett, alongside guitarist Curtis Volp and a host of incredible percussionists including Rosie Bergonzi, Nathan Gregory and Alex Atty. For us the show is a labour of love. When I improvise conventional musicals I try to sing in an MT (musical theatre) style*. But in These Folk I can sing in my own voice. We don’t do the show very often so we’re still learning. There’s so much more I’d like to explore if we had time, in terms of specific folk musical styles and all sorts of folk-music related experiments. I guess I’ll just apply to the Arts Council and they’ll give me some money to R&D it and hahahahahaha that will never happen I have literally never been given any theatre funding in my life. Funding bodies can smell the comedy on me.
So we’ll just keep exploring it live in the moment with our audiences, experimenting, feeling out what works, listening to what we get back, and discovering whatever story emerges in the room, all of which feels pretty fitting to folk music really.
Our next London show (and the only one for a while) is at The Etcetera Theatre this Friday 19th at 7pm. I would LOVE to see you there.
*Having spoken to a singing teacher about this it’s not clear exactly what an “MT style” is - I suppose it’s sticking to the sheet music exactly (although how is that possible when you’re improvising and sheet music doesn’t exist?) and not sliding up to the notes…but I wonder whether this will change as musicals change? Girl From The North Country is full of unique vocal styles and even Oklahoma is sung in a VERY different way in the current UK iteration. An interesting thought for the musical theatre nerds among us!