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would come because it was English and it was instrumental and the English were too fond of a chorus and blah, blah, blah. The first gigs we didn’t even have a name – we just booked them ourselves, house concerts and tiny gigs. But it became apparent very quickly that people would love it and that was genuinely surprising.”
“I don’t really know why they love it but a lot of people say they play our tunes in pub sessions. The folk singing communi- ty has been strong for a long time and instrumentalists weren’t necessarily gal- vanised but instrumentalists get very excit- ed about seeing Leveret and I love that. People email and say would you mind if we play your tunes in our sessions and we say OF COURSE YOU CAN! That’s kind of the point. That’s why we printed the sheet music on the sleeve of our last record so people can learn our little tunes. Come and see us and if you like it – FABULOUS – just go off and do it… brush the dust off these old tunes and play them. It’s all there. You don’t always have to play Princess Royal and The Black Joak.”
And talking of sessions, he has some hard observations to make about them…
“The majority of the time going to a session is like going into a room going la- la-la with your fingers in your ears. People just go and play and look down all the time…” (at which point he mimes playing a melodeon). “And they don’t listen at all.
And you think ‘what are you actually doing this for? It is supposed to be social music, but what you are doing is actually anti-social.’ I’d rather sit in a pub and have a chat with someone. It’s social music, which means you have to listen to people and react to them. The best sessions are with about six people or fewer when you can actually converse with someone. When you get thirty people pissing out The Black Joak, what’s the point of that? I can’t stand it.”
Session rage apart, playing with Lev- eret has had a huge effect on his playing.
“T
he only way to get bet- ter is to play with musi- cians who are better than you, and Rob and Andy are the two best
musicians I’ve ever met. Before Leveret I’d never played non-arranged music before. It was always verse-chorus-verse- chorus-stop or whatever. But with this we’ll take a tune, play for forty minutes and explore every nook and cranny of it. At first I was only able to deviate a little bit but they don’t play with arrange- ments and just get on stage and do it and as a result my ability to send my ears elsewhere, not concentrate on what I’m doing and sympathetically respond to other musicians has improved enormous- ly. Play with two geniuses and you become a lot better very quickly.”
“So there’s listening and reacting and also trying to coerce the others to do something. Andy may suddenly stop play- ing because he wants me or Rob to do something mega. You can send musical signals to each other. We have our eyes closed most of the time anyway and usual- ly it works – we normally finish at the same time. Sometimes Andy will count us in and nothing happens because no-one knows who is going to start. It’s one-two-three- four and… we just sit there.”
“But we often have really profound emotional responses. People are really drawn to the fact that it’s all happening before their eyes – no gig is ever the same. Andy will do a set list now but it’s always quite random. He might put a slow tune in at the end of the gig so you play it different- ly. So weirdly more musical freedom came from more structure, it’s very exciting.”
And there you have it. Sam Sweeney, folk fiddler super-hero.
“Nah,” he shrugs dismissively. “I’m just
lucky. Really, I am lucky. I just got a good leg-up. Some of our lot in the National Youth Folk Ensemble are the same age I was when I joined Bellowhead. Jon Boden and Fay Hield collectively managed to essentially employ me in three or four bands as soon as I left school and it’s all gone on from there. I do appreciate how lucky I am…”
samsweeneymusic.com F
Photo: © Judith Burrows
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