Sam Lee is a Mercury Prize-nominated and BBC Folk Award-winning singer, conservationist and curator, who has always had a lifelong passion for wilderness studies and nature connection. Lee has spent a long time dedicated to collecting, sharing and interpreting ancient oral music from Britain and Ireland, combining these interests through his ‘Singing with Nightingales’ annual springtime concert series. Now, he has published his first book – The Nightingale – an illustrated miscellany of the nightingale, perfect for nature and bird lovers.
Hi, lovely to speak to you today. How are you?
I’m just in the middle of rehearsing we’ve got a big TV show to do tonight, this afternoon. So we’re just getting ready for that. There’s a lot going on.
I don’t know how you do all of it honestly – the idea of writing music is enough for most people, let alone writing and the conservation work you do too. When was the point that you thought, okay this is going to become a thing – I’m going to put my energy into it and write a book?
I remember an editor at Penguin came to one of my events, and she totally fell in love with it. She said, ‘Sam, you’ve got a book.’ I said, ‘no sorry,’ bu she called me into a meeting with my manager at the Penguin headquarters. Things were so busy with the album coming out and I was just like, ‘Alright, we’re going to say no, but we’re just going in to be polite.’  The really amazing story of what happened… We went into this boardroom and there’s a big wall of books – face front – like Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s books, all these super famous people and I’m completely daunted looking at them. I’m sitting there going, there is no way I’m going to do this. Then, all of a sudden, the book of Michael Jackson – who was my childhood hero – just randomly fell off the shelf and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I have to write this book.’
So how was the process then from that meeting? Obviously, as a musician, you’re immersed in the creative side of life and it’s something you’re so passionate about, but it’s a very different thing to sit down and actually focus on this – the book is so detailed in terms of the amount of research you put into it, so was it a really daunting process?
I mean, it wasn’t. The thing is, I didn’t quite know how big it was until I was in there and each moment was like ‘oh, we’ve got to do this and learn about this and research that.’ A lot of the research I’ve been doing over years – gathering and bits in folders and bookmarks. It was a real joy, finally having the excuse to spend ages diving into these old songs – some of it was really good fun, some was really technical and hard work. What I think is fun about the book itself is that there’s so many parts to it – it goes into one storytelling mode, and then there’s folklore and history – me musing on this idea of humans and ancient history with prehistoric humans and the nightingale. It was broken up into lots of different experiences, as opposed to one big one, which is much harder.
What was very special is the fact that you weaved in so many personal elements and stories, like the first time you heard the nightingale sing. It made the book more personal and engaging, rather than reading like a textbook.
Thank you, that’s the nice thing. It’s a bit of a scrapbook in some ways, and a bit of diary, and a miscellany – so many different things all in one. That’s because I don’t know how to write books, I can just compile and illustrate.
It’s beautifully done. I know you’ve covered this before and do so in the book, but what has the nightingale meant to you over the course of your career?Â
They’ve been a great teacher for me. I’m not a birder. I’m not an ornithologist, I’m a nature lover – that’s been the most important thing in my whole life continuously throughout it. I was never one of those people who focussed in on a particular species – the bird kind of took me on this journey and it was the culture that surrounds the bird that really captivated me and how this bird has meant so many things for so many different people.
Are they part of the reason why you got into music? Almost not being able to separate the two?Â
My getting into folk music was very much about finding a genre that really spoke to me about culture and nature. I don’t see any separation, I feel that folk songs are birdsong in some ways – the closest thing we have as a species to a tribal community and a kind of innate expression, referring to our habitat, community, and our dependence on the land.
It’s amazing when you look at how rich their history is and that comes to life through the book. You think of the environment as so immediate right now often, but it’s got an immensely rich history.
Completely. It’s incredible how nightingales have been so present for literally thousands of years, but we have no record of that.
Over the past year, this has been a time where people have tapped back into nature and got to take the joy out of it. It’s nice to see people experience nature.
Totally, it’s nice that finally people have realised that we need to take more time out to go and experience nature – the ways we entertain ourselves are exciting and diverse. Sometimes, I think we really got to make sure we nourish ourselves with nature walking and exploring our own country, instead of racing off to exotic other places.
I feel like that’s why it seems the perfect time for this book, bringing back the human element. You were talking about weaving through folklore and the human element as well as the technical environmental stuff – bringing it all together. What do you hope people will take away from the book when they’re reading through it?
There’s one very particular thing which is about access and permission. The book is a sort of a manual on how to explore and go and be present and use your initiative in your extensive inquiry and curiosity – that’s really what’s so important with all these nature books – and the mind to try and reveal a very romantic and very ancient way of us stepping out into the outside and tuning in to a sense of wonder.
This was just such a special ‘nature’ book, weaving in so many different elements. Do you think that you will expand on this and maybe go into other things, or was this a stand-alone personal project?
IÂ couldn’t possibly say – I don’t know where my life is heading. There’ll be lots more species and lots more worlds and stories to gather and to make and create. That’s who I am. I’m a story. I’m a story finder. I don’t know how that’ll express itself. I’ve got more albums to make and another book may be brewing in my mind. We’ll see.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat to me today and congratulations on this project.
Well, thanks so much for having me.
