Great Sounds At The Gate 2020
There’ll be an excellent, eclectic and truly international line-up at this summer’s 14th Gate To Southwell music festival (June 4th-7th).
English roots stars Show Of Hands, the Galician piper-powered Anxo Lorenzo Band, Breton/Scots The Celtic Social Club and 2019 BBC folk award winners The Breath (featuring Rioghnach Connolly) are among the headline acts alongside three exceptional Scottish bands Imar, The Jellyman’s Daughter and Talisk (pictured), two Canadian duos in Madison Violet and Pierre Schryer & Adam Dobres, and last summer’s Californian bluegrass stars AJ Lee & Blue Summit.
Now regarded as one of the UK’s best family festivals, set in beautiful rural surroundings near Southwell Racecourse, it all kicks off on Thursday June 4th with a classic Blues Night starring Dutch-based singer/guitarist Ian Siegal.
Over four days of great music will also feature “the renaissance man of English folk”, Chris Wood, the increasingly-influential and charismatic BBC Horizon award-winner Blair Dunlop, master storyteller and emotional songwriter Reg Meuross, plus Texan-born troubadour and guitar virtuoso Rodney Branigan.
If all this wasn’t enough to whet appetites for this action-packed festival - which features music workshops, ceilidhs, dance displays, great children’s entertainment, a craft fair and fine food and drink stalls – GTSF 2020 also brings you the folk-meets-gypsy swing of Beaubowbelles, the French reggae of Simawe from Angiers, great Irish folk and harmonies from Donegal’s The Henry Girls, Italian country blues-meets-ragtime double act Veronica Sbergia & Max De Bernardi and the highly-acclaimed, sweet-voiced multi-national Americana band Track Dogs.
More information at www.gtsf.uk
English roots stars Show Of Hands, the Galician piper-powered Anxo Lorenzo Band, Breton/Scots The Celtic Social Club and 2019 BBC folk award winners The Breath (featuring Rioghnach Connolly) are among the headline acts alongside three exceptional Scottish bands Imar, The Jellyman’s Daughter and Talisk (pictured), two Canadian duos in Madison Violet and Pierre Schryer & Adam Dobres, and last summer’s Californian bluegrass stars AJ Lee & Blue Summit.
Now regarded as one of the UK’s best family festivals, set in beautiful rural surroundings near Southwell Racecourse, it all kicks off on Thursday June 4th with a classic Blues Night starring Dutch-based singer/guitarist Ian Siegal.
Over four days of great music will also feature “the renaissance man of English folk”, Chris Wood, the increasingly-influential and charismatic BBC Horizon award-winner Blair Dunlop, master storyteller and emotional songwriter Reg Meuross, plus Texan-born troubadour and guitar virtuoso Rodney Branigan.
If all this wasn’t enough to whet appetites for this action-packed festival - which features music workshops, ceilidhs, dance displays, great children’s entertainment, a craft fair and fine food and drink stalls – GTSF 2020 also brings you the folk-meets-gypsy swing of Beaubowbelles, the French reggae of Simawe from Angiers, great Irish folk and harmonies from Donegal’s The Henry Girls, Italian country blues-meets-ragtime double act Veronica Sbergia & Max De Bernardi and the highly-acclaimed, sweet-voiced multi-national Americana band Track Dogs.
More information at www.gtsf.uk
Postcards & Pocketbooks: a unique record of Bella
With unflinching courage, Bella Hardy has explored and blurred musical boundaries in her search for meaning, releasing her first nine records in the space of just ten years.
Postcards & Pocketbooks (October 2019) is a double CD of Bella Hardy's most highly treasured works, with re-recordings of classic material, and some never heard before songs.
There is also a beautifully produced casebound book, available either with the CD or separately, which features lyrics to every song written or adapted from traditional music and recorded by Bella from 2007 - 2019.
BBC Folk Singer of the Year Bella Hardy found her first home in folk music through a childhood love for ballad books. A self-taught ‘fiddle singer’, she began performing at Cambridge and Sidmouth festivals from the age of thirteen.
Her debut album Night Visiting established her reputation as a talented songwriter when her first original composition Three Black Feathers earned a BBC Folk Award nomination. Since then, Bella has sung unaccompanied ballads at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall, taken a band of drums, brass and electronics to the National Concert Hall of Budapest, and learnt the songs of Chinese farmers during her time as British Council Musician in Residence in Yunnan Province.
She’s sat on the moors of her beloved Peak District with only her fiddle for company. She spent a year in Tennessee as a ranch hand, looking after horses, fiddle-singing in the diners, and immersing herself in the music culture of Nashville. With her mesmerising voice and ability to conjure and twist stories that call straight to the heart, Bella has beguiled audiences from Canada to Japan, from Spanish bars, to Castles, to Concert Halls.
From Bella's mastery of traditional music and the stripped back strings and concertina of her early days more than a decade ago, to the electric guitar and drums in the self-penned humanist hymns and feminist battle cries of Hey Sammy (2017), via the Derbyshire ballads of The Dark Peak & The White and ancient Chinese poetry of Eternal Spring, (an album of songs and poetry recorded in China), it's been a spellbinding journey. Her themes of displacement and home, lost and found love, heartache and joy, are delivered with her unique, disarming honesty, and, of course, the acclaimed crystalline voice that won her BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Singer of the Year.
Postcards & Pockebooks reflects and records each moment of Bella's career, and is a must for all who appreciate skillful interpretations of traditional music, as well as the relevance of contemporary folk in the modern world. For more information, visit www.bellahardy.com
Postcards & Pocketbooks (October 2019) is a double CD of Bella Hardy's most highly treasured works, with re-recordings of classic material, and some never heard before songs.
There is also a beautifully produced casebound book, available either with the CD or separately, which features lyrics to every song written or adapted from traditional music and recorded by Bella from 2007 - 2019.
BBC Folk Singer of the Year Bella Hardy found her first home in folk music through a childhood love for ballad books. A self-taught ‘fiddle singer’, she began performing at Cambridge and Sidmouth festivals from the age of thirteen.
Her debut album Night Visiting established her reputation as a talented songwriter when her first original composition Three Black Feathers earned a BBC Folk Award nomination. Since then, Bella has sung unaccompanied ballads at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall, taken a band of drums, brass and electronics to the National Concert Hall of Budapest, and learnt the songs of Chinese farmers during her time as British Council Musician in Residence in Yunnan Province.
She’s sat on the moors of her beloved Peak District with only her fiddle for company. She spent a year in Tennessee as a ranch hand, looking after horses, fiddle-singing in the diners, and immersing herself in the music culture of Nashville. With her mesmerising voice and ability to conjure and twist stories that call straight to the heart, Bella has beguiled audiences from Canada to Japan, from Spanish bars, to Castles, to Concert Halls.
From Bella's mastery of traditional music and the stripped back strings and concertina of her early days more than a decade ago, to the electric guitar and drums in the self-penned humanist hymns and feminist battle cries of Hey Sammy (2017), via the Derbyshire ballads of The Dark Peak & The White and ancient Chinese poetry of Eternal Spring, (an album of songs and poetry recorded in China), it's been a spellbinding journey. Her themes of displacement and home, lost and found love, heartache and joy, are delivered with her unique, disarming honesty, and, of course, the acclaimed crystalline voice that won her BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Singer of the Year.
Postcards & Pockebooks reflects and records each moment of Bella's career, and is a must for all who appreciate skillful interpretations of traditional music, as well as the relevance of contemporary folk in the modern world. For more information, visit www.bellahardy.com
Local Honeys tour UK in January and February
From the rolling hills of the Bluegrass and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky duo The Local Honeys ft Montana Hobbs (vocals, guitar and banjo) and Linda Jean Stokley (vocals, guitar and fiddle), are excited to tour the UK in January and February, including two shows at the prestigious Celtic Connections festival.
The tour comes on the back of their recent album release, The Local Honeys Sing The Gospel.
The Gospel is a spiritual and spirited concoction of history, folklore and tradition, tucked tightly into songs blanketing the southern Appalachians. The Honeys interpretation and collection of both sacred and secular songs from the American South are not an attempt to witness the glory of religion, nor are they an attempt to poke fun at organised religion or its followers.
Having been the first women to graduate their state university’s degree programme in traditional ‘Hillbilly’ music, The Local Honeys have gone on to win numerous songwriting accolades, including the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Award at MerleFest, also awarded to Gillian Welch at the beginning of her career.
The duo have dedicated themselves to the preservation of old music and the creation of new music, and their songwriting often reflects subject matter that little girls ought not talk about. This element played a strong impact in the production and creation of their acclaimed 2015 debut album, Little Girls Actin’ like Men.
The early 2020 tour starts and finishes in Dublin, with dates in Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Basingstoke and Milton Keynes sandwiched in between.
For full tour dates and more information, visit the website www.thelocalhoneys.com
The tour comes on the back of their recent album release, The Local Honeys Sing The Gospel.
The Gospel is a spiritual and spirited concoction of history, folklore and tradition, tucked tightly into songs blanketing the southern Appalachians. The Honeys interpretation and collection of both sacred and secular songs from the American South are not an attempt to witness the glory of religion, nor are they an attempt to poke fun at organised religion or its followers.
Having been the first women to graduate their state university’s degree programme in traditional ‘Hillbilly’ music, The Local Honeys have gone on to win numerous songwriting accolades, including the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Award at MerleFest, also awarded to Gillian Welch at the beginning of her career.
The duo have dedicated themselves to the preservation of old music and the creation of new music, and their songwriting often reflects subject matter that little girls ought not talk about. This element played a strong impact in the production and creation of their acclaimed 2015 debut album, Little Girls Actin’ like Men.
The early 2020 tour starts and finishes in Dublin, with dates in Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Basingstoke and Milton Keynes sandwiched in between.
For full tour dates and more information, visit the website www.thelocalhoneys.com
Downend Folk Club's programme to Spring 2020
Bristol's ever-popular Downend Folk Club has announced its programme through to Spring 2020.
Headinling on Friday 17th January is Odette Michel. Odette is a British folk singer-songwriter, guitarist and bouzouki player with a bold new take on the acoustic tradition and a voice capable of demonstrating the finer points of both folk and traditional song with genuine craftsmanship. In May, Odette released her enchanting debut album The Wildest Rose. The album gained widespread positive acclaim and featured notable musical contributions from Phil Beer (one-half of multi-award-winning acoustic folk band Show of Hands) who plays fiddle on two of the tracks and sings backing vocals on one other track; and Toby Shaer (Cara Dillon, Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys). The club's own Ant Miles will open the evening's entertainment with a short solo set.
The February event, on Friday 21st, sees a welcome return for contemporary folk/acoustic Gilmore & Roberts. Nominated three times at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Katriona Gilmore (fiddle, mandolin) and Jamie Roberts (guitar) met while studying at Leeds College of Music. Their 2018 album A Problem Of Our Kind is the fifth studio album from the duo, who combine award-winning songwriting with astounding musicianship and their trademark harmonies to create a powerful wall of sound. Supporting them will be Matt Quinn and Owen Woods.
Described as “a gentle, lulling delight” by The Guardian, Scottish Salt House are headline guests on Friday 20th March, as part of their tour to launch their new album, Huam. Songs are central to Salt House. New songs that sound as if they’ve always been here. Ancient ballads woken up. Poems given the tunes they’ve long deserved. Songs about place, politics, landscape and birds. Kicking off the evening's music will be the impressive John Wilks.
Rounding off the Spring programme, on Friday 17th April, will be the first act ever to sell out a DFC concert... and one that regulars demand that the club has back every three years or so. Sometimes folk, sometimes not, India Electric Co. traditional instruments in contemporary styles to explore diverse themes from Eastern Europe, Irish traditions and modern urban alienation to end up with something “quirky and glittery - a veritable musical magpie’s nest” according to BBC Radio 3. They're back at Downend with a new album in hand, and will be supported by Bristol-based French singer-songwriter Jane B.
Each concert will be held at Frenchay Village Hall and starts at 8.00pm (doors open at 7.30pm).
For any further information, visit www.downendfolkclub.co.uk
Headinling on Friday 17th January is Odette Michel. Odette is a British folk singer-songwriter, guitarist and bouzouki player with a bold new take on the acoustic tradition and a voice capable of demonstrating the finer points of both folk and traditional song with genuine craftsmanship. In May, Odette released her enchanting debut album The Wildest Rose. The album gained widespread positive acclaim and featured notable musical contributions from Phil Beer (one-half of multi-award-winning acoustic folk band Show of Hands) who plays fiddle on two of the tracks and sings backing vocals on one other track; and Toby Shaer (Cara Dillon, Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys). The club's own Ant Miles will open the evening's entertainment with a short solo set.
The February event, on Friday 21st, sees a welcome return for contemporary folk/acoustic Gilmore & Roberts. Nominated three times at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Katriona Gilmore (fiddle, mandolin) and Jamie Roberts (guitar) met while studying at Leeds College of Music. Their 2018 album A Problem Of Our Kind is the fifth studio album from the duo, who combine award-winning songwriting with astounding musicianship and their trademark harmonies to create a powerful wall of sound. Supporting them will be Matt Quinn and Owen Woods.
Described as “a gentle, lulling delight” by The Guardian, Scottish Salt House are headline guests on Friday 20th March, as part of their tour to launch their new album, Huam. Songs are central to Salt House. New songs that sound as if they’ve always been here. Ancient ballads woken up. Poems given the tunes they’ve long deserved. Songs about place, politics, landscape and birds. Kicking off the evening's music will be the impressive John Wilks.
Rounding off the Spring programme, on Friday 17th April, will be the first act ever to sell out a DFC concert... and one that regulars demand that the club has back every three years or so. Sometimes folk, sometimes not, India Electric Co. traditional instruments in contemporary styles to explore diverse themes from Eastern Europe, Irish traditions and modern urban alienation to end up with something “quirky and glittery - a veritable musical magpie’s nest” according to BBC Radio 3. They're back at Downend with a new album in hand, and will be supported by Bristol-based French singer-songwriter Jane B.
Each concert will be held at Frenchay Village Hall and starts at 8.00pm (doors open at 7.30pm).
For any further information, visit www.downendfolkclub.co.uk
New album for 'spellbinding' musician and dancer
Described as 'a true original' by the Guardian, spellbindingly innovative musician and dancer Hannah James and her most recent project The JigDoll Ensemble, announce the release of their impressive new album The Woman and Her Words on Friday 4th October.
One of the key figures in the revival of English percussive dance, Hannah is renowned as one of the best accordionists of the British Folk scene, her musicianship extends far beyond the tradition and flawlessly incorporates beautiful vocal-stylings with both classic and contemporary applications of English clog dance.
The new release is a celebration of ageing, gaining wisdom, and of the many women who have delivered essential truths along the way. Artist and puppeteer Katarina Cakova, based on Hannah's stories, created the physical form of 'the woman’, which appears on the album cover.
A previous collaborative project, Songs Of Separation, won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Album in 2017; while Hannah's vocal trio Lady Maisery produced three critically acclaimed albums and was nominated for the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards.
Her most recent project began solo before becoming the JigDoll Ensemble, was acclaimed as 'the highlight of the festival' at the Folk Expo Manchester in late 2017, debuting to a standing ovation from professional delegates from across the world.
Recorded in Hungary, at the prestigious music venue/studio Budapest Music Centre, the album hosts an international line-up of musicians - András Dés (Hungary – Percussion); Marti Tärn (Estonia – Bass Guitar); Kate Young (Scotland – Fiddle / Vocals); Toby Kuhn (France – Cello).
"I deliberately put together this band of extraordinary musicians because, at this time, I feel it's so important to keep international friendships strong. I have always felt European, not English, and this band is a celebration of that and an example of the great things that can emerge when people from different countries and backgrounds have the freedom to meet and work together," said Hannah.
For more information and tour dates, visit hannahjamesmusic.com
One of the key figures in the revival of English percussive dance, Hannah is renowned as one of the best accordionists of the British Folk scene, her musicianship extends far beyond the tradition and flawlessly incorporates beautiful vocal-stylings with both classic and contemporary applications of English clog dance.
The new release is a celebration of ageing, gaining wisdom, and of the many women who have delivered essential truths along the way. Artist and puppeteer Katarina Cakova, based on Hannah's stories, created the physical form of 'the woman’, which appears on the album cover.
A previous collaborative project, Songs Of Separation, won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Album in 2017; while Hannah's vocal trio Lady Maisery produced three critically acclaimed albums and was nominated for the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards.
Her most recent project began solo before becoming the JigDoll Ensemble, was acclaimed as 'the highlight of the festival' at the Folk Expo Manchester in late 2017, debuting to a standing ovation from professional delegates from across the world.
Recorded in Hungary, at the prestigious music venue/studio Budapest Music Centre, the album hosts an international line-up of musicians - András Dés (Hungary – Percussion); Marti Tärn (Estonia – Bass Guitar); Kate Young (Scotland – Fiddle / Vocals); Toby Kuhn (France – Cello).
"I deliberately put together this band of extraordinary musicians because, at this time, I feel it's so important to keep international friendships strong. I have always felt European, not English, and this band is a celebration of that and an example of the great things that can emerge when people from different countries and backgrounds have the freedom to meet and work together," said Hannah.
For more information and tour dates, visit hannahjamesmusic.com
