Special guests for a joint folk club session on Friday 29 August will be a group of members of Sixmilebridge Folk Club from County Clare in Ireland. To enable us to pack in as much music and singing as possible, the evening will start at 8 pm.
Free entry. Raffle prizes will be welcome! Bring your own drinks – fine ales available at local pubs. Teas and coffee in the kitchen.
Song sessions continue every Friday throughout the summer. All welcome to join the fray.
James Fagan and Nancy Kerr
We look forward to welcoming back the winners of the Best Duo in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2011, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, particularly since their touring together as a duo will become less frequent as the boys grow up. You probably already know many of their songs and if you haven’t come across them before, both fiddler Nancy and bouzouki-player James grew up in the folk tradition – Nancy is the daughter of Sandra Kerr and James is part of the Australian Fagan Family. See more here: Living Tradition article. Recently James has been playing with The Cara Dillon Band and Nancy’s new CD ‘Sweet Visitor’ is released on 21 July.
Tickets £11 (members £8) are SOLD OUT. Bring your own drinks – fine ales available across the road, with teas and coffee in the kitchen.
Special guests filling the two spots at the showcase session on Friday 27 June are finalists at the 2014 New Roots competition at St Albans, Speldosa and Alex Cumming and Nicola Beazley.
Speldosa are a clarsach (harp), fiddle, hammered dulcimer and vocal trio who perform their own arrangements of traditional and modern tunes and songs. Speldosa is Swedish for ‘music box’, so expect a beautiful twinkly sound together with passionate songs and toe-tapping tunes.
Alex and Nicola
Alex Cumming and Nicola Beazley are an exciting new box and fiddle duo performing songs and tunes from around England. They are both recent graduates of the Newcastle Folk and Traditional Music Degree. Expect plenty of lively tunes, spine-tingling arrangements and lots of sing-along choruses.
Singers and players are welcome to come along and take part in the song session – listeners also appreciated! Tickets £3 (£2 members) on the door. Bring your own drinks – fine ales available nearby and teas and coffee from the kitchen.
Alex Cumming and Rosie Calvert (of The Teacups) will be leading a harmony workshop from 10 till noon on Saturday 28 June. All welcome. Tickets £3 (£2 club members). Teas and coffee available in the kitchen.
The guest on Friday 13 June will be the winner of BBC Young Folk Music Award 2010, fiddler, guitarist and singer James Findlay. Brought up in the folk tradition, James is particularly passionate about songs from his home counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon. With a great voice and a love for song that’s evident though his knowledge and understanding of the material, James is one of the most accomplished of the latest generation of folk performers.
James enjoyed a busy year in 2013 with commendations for his folk festival and folk club gigs as well as his part playing Little Musgrave in Jon Boden’s ‘The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard’. He has also been involved in other high-profile projects, including the recording of ‘The Liberty to Choose’, songs from The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, with Lucy Ward, Bella Hardy and Brian Peters, produced by Fellside.
In support is melodeon and English concertina player Saul Bailey, one of the very latest of the New Roots finalists to catch our attention. Saul enjoys experimenting with old and new English folk tunes – particularly ‘dance stuff, fast stuff, furious stuff and frankly ridiculous stuff’. Saul has appeared at various folk clubs and village events, as well as at Cambridge Folk Festival.
Bring your own drinks – fine ales available at nearby establishments, and teas and coffee in the kitchen. Tickets (£10/£7 members) can be reserved by email via the form on the contact page.
For beginners and upwards, the ukulele get-together from 7.30 till 8.30 on Friday 6 June will be followed by the usual song session.
Song session showcase with two spots from our favourite supergroup the Zimmer Follies (otherwise known as Mauny Woods, Peter Colman, John Mathews, Colin Tait and Roger Gamble). These much loved veterans of the local folk scene present their multiple musical talents, together with a large measure of good humour.
Other performers and listeners are also very welcome at the session. Downstairs. Free entry. Bring your own drinks – pubs nearby – or enjoy a cuppa from the kitchen.
On Friday 16 May we welcome back Anglo-Alaskan duo Tania Opland and Mike Freeman, whose repertoire starts from a base in the traditional musics of North America and the British Isles, spreads through most of Northern Europe and touches on other cultures around the globe. The array of musical instruments includes a rare Eskimo violin, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, djembe, double ocarina and hurdy-gurdy, along with more common instruments such as guitar, recorder and, of course, voice.
Tickets (£10/£7 club members) can be reserved by emailing us via the contact page. Bring your own drinks – fine ales available at nearby establishments, with teas and coffee in the kitchen.
The showcase guests on Friday 25 April will be Kim Lowings and the Greenwood, who will perform a couple of extended spots within the folk song session. They promise an even mix of traditional and original songs, with a few chorus songs thrown in for good measure.
Described by the Potbelly Folk and Roots Club as ‘Rising stars of the folk scene with captivating traditional and original songs’, Kim Lowings and the musicians of the Greenwood collective have supported a range of well known performers. including Martin Simpson, Faustus and Belshazzar’s Feast – Paul Sartin comments, ‘Expect great things to come!’
All musicians and singers are welcome to join the song session, and entry is free, with a raffle to help with expenses. Bring your own drinks – teas and coffee available in the kitchen.
Tony Hall
On Friday 18 April, we look forward very much to welcoming popular local celebrity, melodeon master and modest wit Tony Hall, stepping into the breach to take the place of Bill Whaley and Dave Fletcher, who will now be at the club on Friday 10 October.
“East Anglian melodeon-player with a distinctive, quintessentially English style, who played on the iconic ’80s Nic Jones release ‘Penguin Eggs’. Hall’s sets are laid-back affairs, interspersed with his dry, sometimes gently surreal humour.” (Islington Folk Club) Not to be missed!
Please contact us if you would like tickets, £8 (£5 members). Bring your own drinks – fine ales available nearby, not to mention teas and coffee in the kitchen.
Colum Sands
Singer-songwriter Colum Sands is the consummate Irish story-teller. This promises to be an evening full of wit, good humour and well loved songs. Colum is a member of the internationally renowned Sands Family from County Down, who recently celebrated 40 years on the road.
On his travels around the world, Colum soon discovered that many of his songs had arrived before him, carried by other singers and in recordings by fellow performers like Andy Irvine, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, Roy Bailey, Mick Hanley, Rosemary Woods, Iain McIntosh and Enda Kenny. Don’t miss this rare treat!
Bring your own drinks (teas and coffee available in the kitchen). The evening starts, as usual, at 8.30 pm. Tickets £10 (£7 club members). Contact us if you would like us to save one for you.
Showcase guests at the song session on Friday 14 March will be Nick Wiseman-Ellis and Nic Zuppardi of Triette, both accomplished graduates from the Folk and Tradiitonal Music degree based at Newcastle University. Their distinctive sound is grounded in the tradition of French and Breton dance music, as well as the rich music traditions of Sweden and England, with driving interpretations of traditional material and vivid arrangements influenced by folk dance. They have performed at festivals and folk clubs across Europe, collaborated with Karen Tweed and German folk group Iontach, as well as being finalists in the Swedish Young Folk Band of the Year Awards 2011.
All welcome. Bring songs, tunes and your own drinks. Teas and coffee available in the kitchen. Free entry.
