Sam Richards (born 1949 in London), is an English writer, composer, improviser, jazz pianist and former folk music collector and performer. For most of his life he has lived in south Devon. His father was the writer and playwright Allen Saddler (1923–2011).
After studying with Alfred Nieman at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and being active in experimental music, he moved to Devon and quickly became involved in the performance and collection of folk music, accumulating some 600 hours of recordings from traditional performers. In the late 1980s his interest returned to avant-garde and experimental music, and he has composed and performed extensively in that genre. He taught at Dartington College of Arts and also at the University of Plymouth until 2018.
His writings include the books "Soundings - All Kinds of Music, A 21st Century Musician's Anthology", "Dartington College of Arts - Learning by Doing", The Engaged Musician, John Cage as... and Sonic Harvest: Towards Musical Democracy; BBC Radios 2 and 3 documentaries including one on the composer Morton Feldman; and articles for Oral History, the Folk Music Journal, fRoots, Contemporary Music Review, Proof, The Wire and the New Statesman.