Ep 29 / Sam Lee, Musician

The Mercury Prize-nominated folk singer joins us to discuss his book 'The Nightingales' and musical collaborations with the legendary bird.

Watch or Listen: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / YouTube

The latest episode of the Ecosystem Member podcast is with the epic musician, writer and nature campaigner, Sam Lee.

If you aren’t familiar with Sam, he is a Mercury Prize-nominated folk musician who has broken through to the mainstream. His latest album ‘songdreaming’ earned a five-star review from The Guardian and was named Mojo’s Album of the Month.

When I set out to explore the relationships humans have with nature and the more-than-human world, I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Many of these relationships are based on taking resources or inspiration from nature, but Sam’s relationship with the nightingale is one of collaboration - across several mediums.

In addition to collaborating with the nightingale on songs like ‘Bushes & Briars & Birds’, which is part of the Earthpercent and Sounds Right initiative to credit and financially recognize through royalties the more-than-human world as a musical contributor, Sam runs immersive events every spring called ‘Singing With Nightingales', where seekers can join Sam and a guest musician to delve into the forest at night and sing with the nightingales. It sounds like a truly magical experience that we discuss in more depth in the podcast.

Sam also wrote the book ‘The Nightingale: Notes on a Songbird’ that was called the nature book of the year when it was released in 2021 and has collaborated with organizations like Emergence Magazine, Huck and On the Edge to create films around his connection with the nightingale.

What's worrying is that the UK is on track to lose the nightingale entirely within the next 40 years. Future generations may not even have the chance to connect and collaborate with the nightingale, making it all the more important that we connect people with it now so we can understand what we might be losing.

Make sure to visit Sam's website at samleesong.co.uk and follow him on Instagram at samleesong. He's got some amazing events coming up. Tickets are on sale today - November 27 - at for Signing with the Nightingales 2025, and he'll be performing in the coming months at venues including Edinburgh Castle and Royal Albert Hall.

Huge thanks to Sam for taking time to chat. I got a bit rambly in my questions as I am a big fan of Sam's music and was just a little nervous to say the least, but I really hope you enjoy the outcome.

And if you are intrigued by the idea of Earthpercent and Sounds Right, make sure to stay tuned as we'll have more artists on who have participated in this effort. You can find about more about Earthpercent at earthpercent.org and on Instagram at @earthpercent. It is really the music industry's climate foundation was was founded by the legendary musician and creative catalyst Brian Eno. And what's really cool is that anyone in music - not just the musician, so think promoters and venue artists - can work with Earthpercent to include Earth as a stakeholder in their activities. All of the money raised is distributed to fund climate solutions by an Expert Advisory panel of leading climate scientists, researchers and advisors.

I really hope you enjoy this episode with Sam.

Thanks for Listening -

Rick

Mentioned in the Episode