I'll be out of the office on Monday, but rather than leave you without music to start the week, I've set this post up in advance....

In the video above, the lovely Sam Lee performs a trio of gypsy songs accompanied by Flora Curzon (fiddle), Josh Green (percussion), and Jon Whitten (ukulele). The songs are "Over Yonders Hill" (collected here in the West Country), "Lovely Molly," and "Goodbye My Darling." 

Sam is a wildly innovative folk singer and song collector who learned his vocal style from the UK's Travelling community. He talks about the genesis of the songs above -- but if you'd like to learn more about them, and about his apprenticeship with Scottish Traveller balladeer Stanley Robertson, watch "Ballad Lands," a short flm on the subject shot in Aberdeen.

In the video below, filmed by Lucy Kaye, he brings his recording of the Napoleonic ballad "Bonny Bunch of Roses" back to woman he learned it from, the great Traveller singer Freda Black. For more information on the Tradition Bearers who have carried these songs, stories, and folkways to the present day, I recommend the Song Collectors Collective website, which is a wonderful resource.

The photograph above is "Traveller and Dog" by Matt Bigwood, the portrait of a young Traveller on his way home from the Stow on the Wold Horse Fair. The photograph below is "Writer and Dog" by my husband, taken this summer here on Dartmoor. I hope to be back in the office/studio tomorrow, health permitting.

All rights to the music and photographs above reserved by the musicians and photographers.