Sam Sweeney | |
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 Sam Sweeney performing at the Warwick Folk Festival, July 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Sam Sweeney |
| Born | 27 February 1989 Nottingham, England |
| Genres | Folk |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Website | www |
Sam Sweeney (born 27 February 1989 in Nottingham) is a multi-instrumental English folk musician.
Sweeney was introduced to folk music as a child via his parents' record collection and taught himself to play traditional pieces by ear. [1] He started playing the fiddle at age six, and first performed as a soloist at folk festivals in 2001. [2] From 2002 to 2010, he was part of the East Midlands-based folk band Kerfuffle, playing fiddle, viola, and cajon, and singing. [3] When Kerfuffle disbanded, Sweeney continued playing with accordion player and singer Hannah James as the duo Hannah James and Sam Sweeney.
From 2008 to 2016, he became a member of the award-winning eleven-piece folk band Bellowhead, playing fiddle and English bagpipes, as a replacement for former member Giles Lewin. Sweeney played with Bellowhead until their final gig in May 2016 at Oxford Town Hall. [4]
He has toured with Jon Boden and the Remnant Kings, playing both drums and fiddle, sometimes simultaneously. [5] He is also a member of Fay Hield's band, originally named the Fay Hield Trio but as of 2012 called Fay Hield & The Hurricane Party, [3] and took part in The Full English album and tour in 2013.
Together with Andy Cutting and Rob Harbron, he formed English folk supergroup Leveret in 2015. [6]
Sweeney helped set up the UK's National Youth Folk Ensemble, [1] an EFDSS programme that introduces young people to folk music through schools, community settings and residential courses. He was appointed inaugural Artistic Director of the Ensemble in 2015. [7]
In 2018, he started his solo career with the album The Unfinished Violin. [8] [9] Two years later in 2020, he followed it with his second album Unearth Repeat. [10] Then, he released an album called Escape That in 2022. That album was used as support to Bellowhead reuniting for a November 2022 tour for the tenth anniversary of the band's album Broadside. He also played alongside his Bellowhead bandmates during the tour. The band decided to reunite after doing a virtual concert during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sweeney has won a number of awards including the 'In The Tradition' award and the 'Wiltshire Folk Association Young Folk Award', which he won for two years in succession. He was also a nominated in the 2004 BBC Young Folk Awards. [11] In 2007 he won one of five BBC Performing Arts Fund bursaries to help him start his musical career. [3] Sweeney was nominated for the 'Musician of the Year' award at the 2013 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and won this award at the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. [12] His album Unearth Repeat was voted "Album of the Year" for 2020 by Bright Young Folk readers with almost the 36% of the votes.
| Year | Title | Band (or ensemble) | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Not to Scale | Kerfuffle | [13] |
| 2004 | K2 | Kerfuffle | [14] |
| 2005 | Sleeping at the Station | (with Charlie Barker) | [15] |
| 2006 | Links | Kerfuffle | [16] |
| 2008 | To the Ground | Kerfuffle | [17] |
| Matachin | Bellowhead | [18] | |
| 2009 | Umbrellowhead | Bellowhead | [19] |
| Lighten the Dark: A Midwinter Album | Kerfuffle | [20] | |
| Catches and Glees | Hannah James and Sam Sweeney | [21] | |
| Keepsakes | (with Sam Carter) | [15] | |
| 2010 | Hedonism | Bellowhead | [22] |
| Looking Glass | (with Fay Hield) | [15] | |
| No Man's Fool | (with Rachael McShane) | [15] | |
| Born to Wander | (with Louise Jordan) | [15] | |
| A New Dawn | Circus Envy | [15] | |
| 2011 | Regret | Circus Envy | [15] |
| 2012 | The No Testament | (with Sam Carter) | [15] |
| State and Ancientry | Hannah James and Sam Sweeney | [23] | |
| Broadside | Bellowhead | [24] | |
| Orfeo | (with Fay Hield) | [15] | |
| 2014 | Revival | Bellowhead | [25] |
| Made in the Great War | Solo | [26] | |
| 2015 | New Anything | Leveret | [6] |
| 2016 | Old Adam | (with Fay Hield) | [15] |
| How the City Sings | (with Sam Carter) | [15] | |
| In the Round | Leveret | [6] | |
| 2017 | Big Machine | (with Eliza Carthy and the Wayward Band) | [6] |
| Inventions | Leveret | [27] | |
| 2018 | The Unfinished Violin | Solo | [9] |
| 2019 | Diversions | Leveret | [28] |
| 2020 | Variations Live | Leveret | [29] |
| Unearth Repeat | Solo | [10] | |
| 2022 | Escape That | Solo | |
Spiers and Boden are an English folk duo. John Spiers plays melodeon and concertina, while Jon Boden sings and plays fiddle and guitar while stamping the rhythm on a stomp box. Spiers and Boden were founding members of the folk band Bellowhead.
Andy Cutting is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions with wider influences. He is three times winner of the Folk Musician of the Year award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and has appeared on around 50 albums, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians. He was born in Harrow, London and is married with three children.
Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide range of musical styles and influences. The band included percussion and a four-piece brass section. Bellowhead's bandmembers played more than 20 instruments among them, whilst all performers provided vocals.
Kerfuffle were a four-piece English folk band, originally formed in 2001 around the East Midlands and South Yorkshire regions of the UK, initially comprising Hannah James, Sam Sweeney, Chris Thornton-Smith (guitar) and Tom Sweeney. Thornton-Smith was replaced by Jamie Roberts in 2007. Kerfuffle disbanded in August 2010.
Not to Scale is the first album by folk band Kerfuffle.
Links is the third album by folk band Kerfuffle.
Jon Boden is a singer, composer and musician, best known as lead singer and main arranger of Bellowhead. His first instrument is the fiddle and he is a proponent of "English traditional fiddle style" and also of "fiddle singing", both of which he employed in Bellowhead, in the duo Spiers & Boden, and previously as a member of Eliza Carthy’s Ratcatchers.
Nancy Kerr is an English folk musician and songwriter, specialising in the fiddle and singing. She is a Principal Lecturer in Folk Music at Newcastle University. She was the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Folk Singer of the Year".
Sean Lakeman is an English folk musician and record producer.
Hannah James and Sam Sweeney were an English folk duo, comprising Hannah James and Sam Sweeney.
Lighten the Dark: A Midwinter Album is the fifth album by folk band Kerfuffle.
Hedonism is the third album by Bellowhead, released on 4 October 2010. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios and was produced by John Leckie. The band also developed a new ale named after the album. Some of the band members took part in the brewing process.
Fay Hield is a traditional English folk singer and a Professor of Music at the University of Sheffield.
State and Ancientry is the second album by folk duo Hannah James and Sam Sweeney.
Broadside is the fourth full album by Bellowhead, released on 15 October 2012.
Sam Carter is a British guitarist, singer and songwriter, originally from the English Midlands but more recently based in Sheffield. He has released four albums of mainly original material which fall loosely into the folk/roots category. Carter is the winner of the "Horizon" award for best newcomer at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2010. Highly regarded as an instrumentalist, contemporary Jon Boden of Bellowhead described him as 'the finest English-style finger-picking guitarist of his generation, and former BBC Radio Two folk show presenter Mike Harding wrote that Carter was "one of the most gifted acoustic guitarists of his generation.". As a songwriter, Carter marries a traditionally English narrative style with elements of American gospel, shapenote, R&B and folk-rock has been described as an "impressively original" performer. Some commentators consider that Carter's guitar and vocal style is similar to that of noted British iconoclasts John Martyn and Roy Harper, whilst his lyrical perspective has further invited comparison with the work of Richard Thompson.
Lady Maisery are an English folk vocal harmony trio composed of Hannah James, Hazel Askew and Rowan Rheingans.
Revival is the fifth studio album by Bellowhead. It was announced at their 10th anniversary concerts in Manchester and London.
Justin Thurgur is a British trombonist and composer/arranger.
Paul Sartin was an English singer, instrumentalist, composer and arranger, specialising in oboe and violin. He was best known for his work with the folk band Bellowhead, but also played with three-piece Faustus and the folk/comedy duo Belshazzar's Feast.
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