Projects

Sam writes and arranges most of his material with his main musical collaborator, Jamie Francis. After meeting at university in Brighton in 2010 and discovering a common interest in roots music, Sam and Jamie began playing together in a folk band, with Jamie (a guitar player first and foremost) deciding to learn to play the banjo because Sam was already the guitarist. They also performed at many open mics and venues as a duo, performing original, folk and blues songs. Naturally, the lives of two young musicians who have absolutely no idea what they´re doing became choc-full of many colourful experiences (including Sam auditioning for ITV´s Britain´s Got Talent whilst in London for a gig, and ending up getting all the way to the final). They still perform together at folk clubs, venues and festivals, performing inventive interpretations of tunes and songs in between (occasionally) funny anecdotes and stories of their misadventures.

His love for Irish gaelic led Sam on to exploring other celtic languages, namely Cornish - one of the most endangered languages in the world. He co-formed the Cornwall-based collective The Changing Room along with song-writer Tanya Brittain, and they began working with Cornish language expert Dr Ken George to write exciting new folk-infused songs in the Cornish language. This partnership has received national acclaim, attracting guest musicians of the highest calibre including Jon Cleave (Fisherman's Friends) and John McCusker, and after numerous features on Radio 2 and Radio 3, Sam became the first person ever to sing in Cornish on National Radio - generating a huge surge of interest in the largely forgotten language. The Changing Room represented Cornwall at the international Pan Celtic song competition in Derry in April 2015 and took the contest by storm, winning all three categories that they were entered in - Best Original Song, Best Traditional Song, and Best Traditional Band. The project is currently on hiatus, but they have released two full length albums and numerous EPs. Their most recent album was Picking Up The Pieces, which was released in August 2016.

Inspired by the likes of The Elizabethan Sessions and The Full English, The Company of Players was a contemporary folk collective set up by Jess Distill of Said The Maiden. The purpose of the collective was to write, record and perform songs inspired by the works of William Shakespeare, as 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of his death. Alongside Sam, the project featured the talents of emerging folk artists Said The Maiden, Lukas Drinkwater, Kelly Oliver, Chris Cleverley, Kim Lowings, Minnie Birch, and Daria Kulesh. Sam recorded and produced the Company Of Players album, Shakespeare Songs, in 2016.