Samuel Charles Lakeman (born 6 November 1975) is an English musician, songwriter, and producer and co-owner of Charcoal Records.
He was brought up in the village of Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon, with his brothers, fellow musicians Seth Lakeman and Sean Lakeman. He currently lives in Frome, Somerset, with his wife, the award winning Irish singer Cara Dillon and their two sons and daughter.
Sam began playing music with his parents and two brothers Seth and Sean at an early age.
As a family band they started playing at festivals, regattas, and village fetes. Sam and his fellow siblings formed The Lakeman Brothers in the early 1990s - with Sam on piano/keyboards, Seth on fiddle, and Sean on guitar. The brothers toured throughout the UK and Europe during weekends and school holidays performing at festivals and venues winning critical acclaim for their musical abilities, compositions and fresh arrangements of traditional tunes. The trio wrote and produced the album ’Three Piece Suite’ (1994).[1]
In the late part of 1994 they were invited by two Yorkshire based singers Kathryn Roberts and Kate Rusby to join them as a backing group on a tour of Portugal. After the tour the five musicians became a permanent group and called themselves Equation.[2]
The group swiftly garnered much praise and hype and, shortly after Cara Dillon replaced Kate Rusby in the summer of 1995, signed a major record deal with Blanco y Negro (part of Warner Music Group) and recorded an album at Peter Gabriel's Realworld Studios in winter 1995-'96. The album, entitled Return to Me, was produced by David Bottrill. There was a single release, "He Loves Me", with an accompanying promotional video.[3] The band performed on MTV and VH1, but weeks before the release of the album the record label shelved it. It was not released in 1996, but in 2003 it saw a release under Rough Trade after Geoff Travis (the band's former manager) bought its rights.
Sam left Equation along with Cara because of musical differences and together they immediately signed a separate deal with the same label. The duo was known as Polar Star. During this time Sam formed an extremely strong musical partnership with Dillon. They recorded several albums with top songwriters and producers in the UK and San Francisco, but none of their work was released. By 2000, Sam and Cara had decided that they would never be able to give the label what they wanted. Circa summer 2000, Dillon and Lakeman ended their five-year relationship with Warner Music Group and signed to Indie label Rough Trade Records.
Sam produced, co-wrote, arranged and recorded all four of Cara Dillon's solo albums as well as featuring on piano, acoustic guitar, hammond organ, harmonium and percussion. He was co-producer and musical director on The Redcastle Sessions (DVD) and has produced and mixed for a variety of artists including Seth Lakeman, Ian Anderson, Andy Irvine and John Smith. He has toured the world playing on stages in Europe, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, The USA and Canada.
After completing their record contract with Rough Trade, Sam and Cara formed Charcoal Records in 2008 and released Cara's fourth album Hill Of Thieves in January 2009. In Feb 2010 It won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for "Album Of The Year".