“The Best Record I’ve EVER PRODUCED”

BERNARD BUTLER is wowed by Sam Lee.

“I MET SAM not long after his first album came out [in 2012], which I’d loved. We really intrigued each other, and spent an afternoon improvising together. I loved Sam’s voice, and his lack of reference points for my old indie world. (Laughs) I always love that! Five years later, he rang me up. I’m so glad he did.

“I did a lot of work with Bert Jansch – we were good friends, and hung out as much as we played – but I’ve never really cared about the scholarship of folk. I just use my ears. And Sam’s not a musician as such – I feel bad saying that – but he’s not showing me his Fairport Convention collection or obsessing about specific guitars. He’s an artist. He lives life on the surface, uncluttered and free. That reflects the music he wants to make.

“Sam gave me his trust from the start. It was clear he was very comfortable in his front room, so we started there; we did some stuff in my front room too, as well as studios later. But at the beginning, there was this sense that here we were, in this space, trying to find the most primal sense of a song. And on the entire record there is only one effect – some tiny reverb – which we hugely deliberated over. I wanted to record Sam as a soul singer, basically, put him in an acoustic space that gave him an atmosphere.

“Sam had notes and notes on what he wanted to sing – I loved that. On one, The Moon Shines Bright, it said: ‘With Liz Fraser?’ So I went, Er, Sam, is this the Liz Fraser? And he was all, ‘Oh! She’s my friend! Do you know her?’ (laughs) She recorded her part in her own studio – we’ve still never met, we’ve only spoken on the phone – and it arrived late one Friday night, after I’d been to the pub. I ran out to my studio anyway and turned it up. Then I was playing it to my wife in the kitchen all night. I still can’t believe we got her.

“I’m incredibly proud of Old Wow. It’s probably the best record I’ve ever produced. I listen to it a lot on my own, even when I’m running, thinking, I can’t wait for everyone else to have this. It’s beautiful and it’s challenging, as all the best music should be.“