Folk Music
BBC Radio 2 - Folk Music - Wednesdays.
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, May 19, 2006
Mike Harding chats to Jim Moray about the release of his new self-titled album. Jim's previous album, Sweet England, won him the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Album as well as the Horizon Award that year. Plus Mike's usual great selection of the best in folk, roots and acoustic music including news of artists currently on tour and the latest album releases.
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Roy Bailey - Great Gig at The Trades Club.
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, May 17, 2006
I went over to Hebden Bridge a few weeks ago to see Roy Bailey, veteran folk singer / guitarist for over 40 years, a great performance by Roy at the Trades Club, a superb club that really does get some of the finest performers playing on a very regular basis. I have seen a good few great Folk singer / Songeriter performances at the Trades Club over the last few years, a great venue, with a very appreciative audience. Roy Bailey's performance was superb, I have not heard a great deal of his music, maybe listened to a couple of his C.D.'s and a few tunes played on the Mike Harding Radio 2 Folk show on a Wednesday night, but as any review of Roy Bailey will tell you, he is not to be missed.
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Once again another Mike Harding Show on BBC Radio 2 - www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Once again another Mike Harding Show on BBC Radio 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/ WEDNESDAY 19th April Mike chats to record producer Joe Boyd, the man responsible for some of folk music's most historic and valued albums. In a special feature-length interview, Joe tells some of the inside stories from a life working with artists such as Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. He plays some of the classic tracks he produced, including Drake's Way To Blue and Fairport's Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, featuring the vocals of the much-missed Sandy Denny. Plus Mike's usual great selection of the best in folk, roots and acoustic music including news of artists currently on tour and the latest album releases.
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Jim's Cafe - Music Night - Easter Sunday 23rd April
Folk Music Local Folk Clubs, Pubs and gigs. By Fusive on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Jim's Cafe Music Night, Easter Sunday. A great night was had back at Jim's Cafe last Sunday Night (Easter Sunday), we have had a good time over the last year with the music nights, more or less every fortnight. Lots of thanks to Jim and all the musicians who turned up to play, it was a really good night, it was the first music night of the year back at Jims, and it was well supported, hopefully it will be back now on a monthly basis, details to be posted here when they are confirmed.
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Mike Harding BBC Radio 2 Wednesday 8 pm
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Another life saving hour of folk music from Mr Mike Harding on BBC Radio 2 Wednesdays with the Mike Harding BBC Radio 2 Folk show last night, another good show that was well worth a listen, you can listen again on the internet until next Wednesday night when it usually updated, use this link, or paste into your browser. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/
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Local Gigs -
Folk Music Local Folk Clubs, Pubs and gigs. By Fusive on Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Welcome again to www.oakstoneclassics.co.uk there have not been many folk music nights that I have been to for the last few weeks, the last good session I attended was on St Patrick's day over in Huddersfield, an absolutely steaming good night, we went to see Softmick in one of the town centre pubs, and finished the night at the Irish Centre with an excellent music session, the best gig before that was the Fairport Convention 2006 Winter Tour, at Burnley Mechanics, both nights were absolutely fantastic. The only folk music I have had to get me through the dark evenings in the early part of this year has been Mike Hardings radio show on Wednesdays 8pm BBC Radio 2, at least that is consistant whatever the weather, some great music to listen out for. Listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/ The next gig I will be going to will be to see Christy Moore in Manchester at the Bridgewater Hall on Good Friday, I can't wait to see him again, saw him last year when he played at the Royal
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22nd March 2006 - Mike Harding Show BBC Radio 2
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, March 24, 2006
Mike's guest in the studio this week is one of the young trailblazers of the folk scene, Seth Lakeman. Mike chats to Seth and plays tracks from his brand new album Freedom Fields which is released this week. Plus Mike's usual great selection of the best in folk, roots and acoustic music including news of artists currently on tour and the latest album releases. Also great favourites of mine Show of Hands get a mention for their title track on their latest album Witness, absolutely amazing to see live, don't take my word for it, go see for yourself how good they are, I saw them at Burnley Mechanics last year with their guest performer Miranda Sykes on double bass and vocals, probably the best performers I have ever seen, they had the crowd in the palm of their hand, with their sheer talent, warm personalities, and fantastic musicianship. Enjoy.
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St Patrick's Night - March 17th - 2006 - My night out in Huddersfield.
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, March 24, 2006
Hope you all had a great St Patrick's day wherever you are, what a great night I had, I was out in Huddersfield with friends, we went over to see a superb band at the Zetland in the town centre called Softmick, what a tight band, they played some fantastic songs and tunes that had the audience singing along and jigging about, they really made my day, along with a few pints of Guinness and a few good measures of Jamesons of course.
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Mike Harding - Folk on Radio 2 - Each week - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, March 24, 2006
Another great show from Mr Mike Harding, and some fantastic songs, it was so good I listened to the show 3 times using the playback facility on the internet, Richard Thompson was the guest this week in the studio with Mike, I particularly like the song "Beeswing", which one of my all time favourites Singers Christy More has covered and features on his Burning Times album, well worth running out to buy. You can listen to each show for the next 7 days or so after it has been played on BBC Radio 2 on the Wednesday night, I also like to hear Billy Mitchell's song from his great album the Devil's Ground, make sure you get to listen.
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Arlo Guthrie
Folk Music By Fusive on Thursday, March 09, 2006
Arlo Guthrie (born July 10, 1947, Brooklyn, New York ) is an American folk singer who is the son of folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie and his Jewish wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, a one-time professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of The Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease. He graduated from the Stockbridge School of Massachusetts in 1965, and briefly attended Rocky Mountain College. His most famous work is "Alice's Restaurant", a talking blues song that lasts 18 minutes and 20 seconds (in its orignal recorded version; Guthrie has been known to spin the story out to forty-five minutes in concert). The song, a bitingly satirical protest against the Vietnam War draft, is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie was called up for a draft examination, and rejected as unfit for military service as a result of a criminal record consisting in its entirety of a single arrest, court appearance, fine and clean-up order for littering.
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Cambridge Folk Festival
Folk Music By Fusive on Thursday, March 09, 2006
The Cambridge Folk Festival is renowned for its eclectic mix of music and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It occurs over a long weekend (3 1/2 days) in summer at Cherry Hinton Hall. 2004 was its 40th anniversary. The festival is very popular and tickets sell out quickly. In autumn 1964 Cambridge City Council, England, decided to hold a music festival the next summer and asked Ken Woollard a local firefighter and socialist political activist to help organise it. Ken had been inspired by a documentary, Jazz On A Summer’s Day, about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. The first Festival sold 1400 tickets and almost broke even.
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Mike Harding - BBC Radio2 - Wednesday -
Folk Music By Fusive on Thursday, March 09, 2006
Mike Hardings folk show on BBC Radio 2 Wednesday 8 pm or for the next week listen online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/ Always worth a listen each week for the best Folk Music played on the radio. WEDNESDAY 15th February Tonight's programme is made up entirely of listeners' requests for the very best in folk, roots and acoustic music.
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Gordon Lightfoot
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Gordon Lightfoot was born November 17, 1938 to Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Sr. and Jessica Lightfoot in Orillia, Ontario, Canada. As a youth, he sang in the choir of St. Paul's United Church under the direction of choir-master Ray Williams. Lightfoot remarked in 2005 that it was Williams who "taught him how to sing with emotion and how to have confidence in his voice"
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Roy Harper
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Roy Harper was born in the Manchester suburb of Rusholme, England. After the death of his mother during childbirth, he was raised in Blackpool by his father and his step-mother, whom he did not get along with because of her Jehovah's Witness beliefs. Harper's anti-religious views would later become a familiar theme in his music. At the age of 10, he began playing skiffle music with his older brother, David Harper, as well as being influenced by blues music. Leaving school when he was 15, he joined the Royal Air Force only to reject its rigid discipline, and then managed to feign madness (and received Electroconvulsive therapy) in order to get a discharge. Harper then busked around Europe until 1964 when he returned to England and gained residency at London's famous Les Cousins folk club in Soho.
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Eric Bogle
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Eric Bogle (born September 23, 1944) is a Scottish-born Australian singer and songwriter. He was born in Peebles, Scotland, and emigrated to Australia in 1969. He currently resides near Adelaide, South Australia. Perhaps his best-known song, written in 1972, is "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda", a haunting evocation of the ANZAC experience fighting in the Battle of Gallipoli; it has also been interpreted as a reaction to the Vietnam war.
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Old Swan Band
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
The Old Swan Band are a long-established and influential English Country Dance Band. Their origins lie in the early 1970's with the English Country Dance Band Oak, one of a tiny handful at that time that combined melodeon with fiddles. Two members of Oak, husband and wife Rod and Danny Stradling (melodeon and vocals), went on to form The Cotswold Liberation Front, which became The Old Swan Band in 1974. They recruited fiddler Paul Burgess, percussionist Martin Brinsford and the Fraser Sisters (Fi and Jo). Fi (short for Fiona) is a fiddle player and singer; her sister Jo (aged 13 when she joined the band) plays saxophone, clarinet and whistles, and is also a singer and composer.
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Andy Cutting
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Andy Cutting is an English folk musician and composer. Born 18 March 1969 in Harrow, he plays diatonic button accordion and has had instruments made by Castagnari to his own specification. He joined the influential and innovative band Blowzabella in 1988 and made one album ("Vanilla") with them before they broke up in 1990. Their repertoire, blending English traditional music with that of central France and Eastern Europe, had a great influence on Cutting. (Blowzabella subsequently reformed; they celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2003, with Cutting once again an official member.)
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Michael McGoldrick
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Michael McGoldrick is a flute and tin whistle player. Born (late 1960s ?) to Irish parents in Manchester, United Kingdom, he is widely seen as one of the greatest living players of Irish music on the flute. He also plays the uilleann pipes. He has been a member of several influential bands and is in great demand as a guest musician. In 1994 he won the BBC Young Tradition Award, and in 2001 he was given the Instrumentalist of the Year award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. McGoldrick was a founder-member of Celtic-rock band Toss the Feathers while still at school.
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Sharon Shannon
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Sharon Shannon is an Irish musician from the village of Ruan in County Clare. She is best known for her work with the accordion and her violin fiddle technique, but has also played the tin whistle and melodeon. Her 1991 album Sharon Shannon is the best selling album of traditional Irish music ever released there[1]. Beginning with British Isles folk music, her work demonstrates a wide-ranging number of musical influences, including reggae, cajun music, Portuguese music, and French Canadian music. Her single What You Make It (da, da, da, da) featured hip hop music artists Marvel and Lady K. Her work has also been remixed as dance music.
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Horslips
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Horslips were a 1970s Irish rock band that composed, arranged and performed their own Celtic rock songs and music based on traditional Irish jigs and reels. They were one of the first, if not the first, of the Celtic rock bands of that era. Formed in 1970, they disbanded in 1980, but recently (in 2005) the original line-up has regrouped and performed a small number of gigs. Horslips were one of Ireland's leading rock groups of their era, although their success overseas was mixed.
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Luka Bloom
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Luka Bloom (born 23 May 1955 as Barry Moore) is an accomplished Irish folk-rock singer-songwriter. He is also the younger brother of Irish folk singer Christy Moore. In order to avoid the pressure of being related to Christy Moore, Bloom adopted his pseudonym. "Luka" is taken from the title of Suzanne Vega's song about child abuse and "Bloom" references the main character in James Joyce's Ulysses. Bloom is, however, very forthcoming about being Moore's brother and does not hide behind his stage name. Luka Bloom's style of guitar playing is very distinctive and is generally referred to as "electro-acoustic". In his early career as Barry Moore, Bloom used a fingerpicking style. However, tendonitis in his hands forced him to adopt a strumming style which is the one he still uses and is often credited with his success.
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Dónal Lunny
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Dónal Lunny (born 1947) is an Irish folk musician. Born in Tullamore, then moved to Newbridge, County Kildare, as a teenager he joined a band called Rakes of Kildare, with Christy Moore. The strangely named Emmet Spiceland was an amalgam of two bands. Dónal joined them and recorded one album with them in 1968. They were a vocal harmony group and reached number one in Ireland with a single "Mary From Dungloe". In 1971 he played on Prosperous, the first album by Christy Moore.
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Davy Spillane
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Davy was born in Dublin in 1959 and was brought up to speak Irish as his first language. At the age of 12 he fell under the spell of the uilleann bagpipes. His father took him to festivals around Ireland. For the next three years he played at sessions and met many prominent Irish musicians. At the age of 16 he started to play at concerts in Ireland, Britain and Europe. He starred as a gipsy in Joe Comerford's film "The Traveller". In 1978 he appeared on a compilation album of promising young uilleann players called "The Piper's Rock". From this point he moved away from traditional music and began to write his own tunes, mainly ballads.
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Sweeney's Men
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Sweeney's Men was an Irish traditional band. They were a part of the late 1960s Irish roots revival, along with groups like The Dubliners and the Clancy Brothers. Their line-up in 1966 was Joe Dolan, Johnny Moynihan and Andy Irvine, but Dolan was replaced by Terry Woods only a year later. At the time, they played the tin whistle, concertina, harmonica, guitar, mandolin, banjo and bouzouki.
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Altan
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Altan is a band from County Donegal, Ireland, that plays traditional Irish music. Frankie Kennedy used to travel from Belfast to Donegal in his summer holidays, learning Irish and playing music. There he met Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. They married in 1981. They recorded on three of Albert Fry's albums, then, two years later they recorded their first album together, Ceol Aduaidh (Music of the North). Mairéad grew up in Irish-speaking Gweedore, learning to play fiddle from her father, himself a noted musician. At this time Donegal music was little known outside of the county. Frankie played obscure northern flute tunes. The combination attracted lots of attention, particularly since Mairéad had an outstanding voice as well a rare talent on the fiddle.
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Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Crosby, Stills & Nash (at times known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) is a pioneering folk rock/rock supergroup that formed out of the remnants of three 1960s bands: Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, and the Hollies. The band is primarily known for their three- (and sometimes four-) part vocal harmonies. They have a strong association with the Woodstock Festival, and they are one of the few North American groups that rivaled the Beatles in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They are commonly referred to by their initials CSN or CSNY.
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Steeleye Span
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Steeleye Span was co-founded by Ashley Hutchings, the London-born bass player who had co-founded Fairport Convention in 1967. Fairport was involved in a road accident in 1969 in which the drummer, Martin Lamble, was killed and other bandmembers injured. They convalesced in a rented house near Winchester in Hampshire and worked on their album Liege And Lief. Despite the success of the album, Ashley Hutchings and the band's vocalist Sandy Denny left Fairport Convention in early 1970.
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Maddy Prior
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Maddy was born on 14th August 1947 in Blackpool. While in her teens she moved to St Albans. In St. Albans she befriended the young Donovan Leitch and Mac MacLeod. She later formed a duo with MacLeod called Mac & Maddy. In 1966 she began performing with Tim Hart, another St Albans resident, and together they recorded two albums before becoming founding members of Steeleye Span in 1970. They were the backbone of the group until the early 1980s when ill-health forced Tim into semi-retirement. Maddy married bassist Rick Kemp, and their daughter, Rose Kemp, launched her own recording career in 2003. Although best known as the powerful soprano in Steeleye Span, Maddy has recorded session work, albums of her own songs and eclectic styles from medieval, through folk-rock, prog-rock and traditional songs. She left Steeleye Span in 1997 but returned in 1999.
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Sandy Denny
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny (January 6, 1947 – April 21, 1978) was a British singer and songwriter, born in Wimbledon, London, England. She is best known for her involvement with the British folk-rock movement, including two spells as a member of Fairport Convention. As a child she studied classical piano. She left school before taking A-levels and started to train as a nurse at Brompton Chest Hospital. In 1965 she enrolled at Kingston School of Art, where she became involved in the folk club on campus. It was there that she met fellow students John Renbourn and Eric Clapton. She travelled in to Earls Court to play at the Troubadour club, where a member of The Strawbs heard her. In 1967 Sandy Denny was invited to join the band and recorded one album in Denmark with them, including the earliest version of her best-known (and widely covered) song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes." In 1968 she became lead vocalist for Fairport Convention replacing Judy Dyble.
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Ashley Hutchins
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
Ashley Hutchings (born January 26, 1945) is a folk musician. Hutchings was born in Southgate, London but moved to Muswell Hill while still a child. He formed several groups, including "Dr K's Blues Band" in 1964. When he met guitarist Simon Nicol, they rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice. The house was called "Fairport" and lent its name to the group they formed together. Hutchings has quite possibly founded more groups than any other bass-player. The most famous are Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span (formed after he left Fairport in 1970) and the ever-changing Albion Country Band (formed after leaving Steeleye in 1971).
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Mike Harding - BBC Radio2 - Wednesday Nights
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 13, 2006
WEDNESDAY 8th February 7-9pm Specially-extended highlights of Monday's 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, when The Brewery in London hosted a glittering line-up of performers and celebrity presenters, celebrating the very best in folk, roots and acoustic music. Performances from folk legends Richard Thompson and Paul Brady, Fairport Convention, Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman and John Tams, who had five nominations in this year's awards. You can listen again until next Wednesday at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/index.shtml
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Mandola
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 06, 2006
The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Europe, Ireland, and UK) is a fretted stringed musical instrument. The mandola has four double courses for a total of eight strings. The instrument is tuned in fifths, to the pitches of the viola (C-G-D-A low-to-high), a fifth lower than a mandolin; the courses are tuned in unison rather than in octaves. The scale length of the mandola is typically around 16.5 inches (420mm). The mandola is typically played with a plectrum (pick).
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Black Mountain Side
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 06, 2006
Although originally credited as a Jimmy Page composition, it is actually an instrumental version of a traditional folk song called "Blackwater Side". Since its guitar arrangement is virtually identical to the version previously recorded by singer-songwriter Bert Jansch, it is sometimes credited to "Jansch/Page". However, Page plays in DADGAD tuning, whereas Jansch uses a simple "bass to D" tuning. Folk singer Anne Briggs, a friend of Jansch, taught him the song; she, in turn, learnt it from the folk music historian A. L. Lloyd.
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Pete Seeger
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 06, 2006
Pete Seeger, 1944 Peter Seeger (born May 3, 1919 in New York City), almost universally known as "Pete Seeger", is a folk singer and political activist. He was a major contributor to folk and pioneer of protest music in the 1950s and the 1960s. He is perhaps best known as the author or co-author of the songs "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", "If I Had a Hammer", and "Turn, Turn, Turn", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and which are still sung all over the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962), Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962), and Johnny Rivers (1965), as "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn," in the mid-1960's.
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Mellow Yellow
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 06, 2006
Mellow Yellow is the fourth album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the United States in March of 1967 (Epic Records LN 24239 (monaural) / BN 26239 (rechanneled stereo)), but was not released in the UK because of a continuing contractual dispute that also prevented Sunshine Superman from a UK release. In June 1967, a compilation of the Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow albums was released as Sunshine Superman (Pye Records NPL 18181) in the UK. Mellow Yellow was also the name of Donovan's hit single released the previous November.
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Jean Ritchie
Folk Music By Fusive on Monday, February 06, 2006
Out of Kentucky In the mid-thirties Alan Lomax recorded in Kentucky for the Library of Congress's Archive of Folk Song. Among the people he recorded was "The Singing Ritchies". Abigail and Balis Ritchie had 14 children and Jean was the last one, born on the 8th December 1922. 10 girls slept in one room of the farming family in the Cumberland Mountains. She quickly memorised songs and performed at local dances and the country fair in Hazard. In the late forties the family acquired a radio and discovered that what they were singing was Hillbilly music, a word they had never heard before. Jean attended Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Kentucky and later the University of Kentucky in Lexington. At college she joined the glee club and choir and learned to play piano. In 1946 she graduated with a BA in social work. During the war she taught in elementary school. In the summer of 1946 she moved to work in the Henry Street Settlement in New York. Here she met Oscar Brand, Leadbelly and Pete Seeger and started si
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Mike Harding show - BBC Radio 2 - Wednesday - 01/02/2006
Folk Music By Fusive on Thursday, February 02, 2006
Once again it was the Mike Harding BBC Radio 2 Folk show last night, another good show that was well worth a listen, you can listen again on the internet until next Wednesday night when it usually updated, use this link, or paste into your browser. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/playlist.shtml?
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Mike Harding - Radio 2 - Wednesday 8pm -
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, January 27, 2006
Mike Harding's Folk show on Wednesday nights, always well worth a listen, if you miss it you can always listen again for the next week on the internet. Here's the playlists for the last two weeks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/harding/playlist.shtml
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Neil Young
Folk Music By Fusive on Friday, January 27, 2006
Neil Young From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Neil Percival Kenneth Robert Ragland Young, better known as Neil Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has become one of the most respected and influential musicians of his generation. Young is recognizable for his high-pitched, nasal voice and for his deeply personal lyrics. Musically, most of Young’s work falls into two distinct styles. The first is an acoustic, country-tinged folk rock, heard on such songs as "Heart of Gold," "Old Man" and "Long May You Run." The other style is a grinding, lumbering form of hard rock, heard on songs like "Cinnamon Girl," "Southern Man" and "Rockin' in the Free World" and often recorded with the backing band Crazy Horse. He has also experimented with soul, swing, jazz, rockabilly, and electronica in his widely varied career.
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Dick Gaughan
Folk Music By Fusive on Thursday, January 26, 2006
Dick Gaughan is a Scottish singer-songwriter. Richard Peter Gaughan was born on 17 May 1948 in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, where his father was temporarily working as an engine driver. One and a half years later the whole family moved to Leith, a port on the outskirts of Edinburgh. He has never returned to Rutherglen. Richard's mother was from Lochaber, and was a native speaker of Gaelic. As a child in the 1930s she won a silver medal at the Gaelic Mod. His father was an Irish speaker from Mayo, who played the fiddle. He was the eldest of three children. Dick Gaughan took up the guitar at the age of 7.
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The Battlefield Band
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
For 30 years Battlefield Band has been a training ground for some of the greatest Scottish musicians. The band's current brand of music was developed when Jenny Clark (vocals, guitar, cittern, dulcimer) and Duncan McGillivray (pipes and whistle) joined up with Brian McNeill and Alan Reid. Stand Easy, the album they recorded in 1979 still stands up as one of the band's finest. The next line-up included Dougie Pincock (bagpipes) and Jim and Sylvia Barnes, Alan Reid (vocals andelectric keyboards) and Brian MacNeill (fiddle). Alan has been a constant member ever since. Every line-up has had a bagpiper, and sometimes two. For a mainly instrumental and traditional band, the presence of electric keyboards is unusual but even more unusual is the absence of percussion. Every album revives some well-researched, long-dead Scottish songs and tunes as well as modern compositions (often original ones). The music ranges from the usual drinking, friendship and hard times to history, geography and politics.
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Liam O'Flynn
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Liam O'Flynn (b. 1945) is a well known Irish folk musician. He was born in County Kildare to musical parents, his father played the fiddle and his mother played the piano. After his first encounter with the uillean pipes, the greatest influences of his development were Leo Rowsome, Willie Clancy, and Séamus Ennis. Liam won recognition by winning prizes at the Oireachtas Festival and the Fleadh Ceoil in the 1960s. He became a founder member of Planxty. The Chieftains were the first to record Irish traditional instrumental music in a group format, but Planxty took it one step further.
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Whistles
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The tin whistle, also called the whistle, pennywhistle, or Irish whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. The Irish words for the instrument are feadóg ('whistle' or 'flute') or feadóg stáin ('tin whistle'); feadóga stáin is the plural. It can be described as an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, Native American flutes, and many other woodwind instruments found in traditional music. History L.E. McCullough notes that the oldest surviving whistles date from the 12th century, but that, "Players of the feadan are also mentioned in the description of the King of Ireland's court found in the Brehon Laws dating from the 3rd century A.D
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Ballad
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
A ballad is a story in a song, usually a narrative song or poem. It is a rhythmic saga of a past affair, which may be heroic, romantic or satirical, political (affected by the previous three types mentioned, refers to either glorifying the exploits or causes of a particular leader or group, and is typical of totalitarian political systems), almost inevitably catastrophic, which is related in the third person, usually with foreshortened alternating four- and three-stress lines ('ballad meter') and simple repeating rhymes, and often with a refrain. If it is based on political or religious themes, a ballad may then be a version of a hymn. Ballads should not be confused with the ballade, a 14th and 15th century French verse form.
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Fairport Convention
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Fairport Convention is often credited with being the first British folk-rock band. Formed in 1967, Fairport rapidly developed from playing cover versions of American 'west coast' style music to an individual style which melded rock music with traditional English tunes and songs. Bedevilled by numerous personnel changes throughout its first decade, Fairport Convention was temporarily disbanded in 1979 but played annual reunion concerts until it reformed in 1985. Since then, it has enjoyed stability and continues to tour and record regularly. In part, the continuing success of Fairport Convention is due to the annual music festival it organises. Cropredy Festival has been held every year since 1974 near Cropredy, a village five miles north of Banbury, Oxfordshire and attracts 20,000 fans.
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Ralph McTell
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Ralph McTell (born Ralph May in Farnborough, England, 3 December 1944) is an English singer/songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk scene since the 1960s. Ralph McTell is probably best known for the song Streets of London which has been covered by over a hundred artists around the world. In the 1980s he wrote and played songs for two TV children's programmes, Alphabet Zoo which also featured Nerys Hughes, followed by Tickle On The Tum featuring Jaqui Reddin. Albums were also released from both series. McTell's guitar style has been influenced by many of the USA's country blues guitar players of the early 20th century, including Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson.
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Folk Clubs
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Folk clubs (as distinct from American folk-music nightclubs) were primarily an urban phenomenon of 1960s and 1970s Britain. Ewan MacColl was a founder of the "Ballad and Blues Club" in a pub in Soho. After a few weeks they moved to "The Princess Louise" at Holborn in 1961. A.L. Lloyd, Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins and many others sang there. Within five years every major city in the UK had a pub where, once a week there would be a room set aside for young people, usually students, to sing traditional and contemporary songs, perhaps with a guitar accompaniment.
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Show of Hands - Steve Knightley - Phil Beer
Folk Music By Fusive on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Show of Hands is an English acoustic roots duo comprising singer-songwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer. Their appeal is based on the combined power of Knightley's original songs, the quality of their vocals and harmonies, and their multi-instrumental virtuosity. Their performances feature guitars, mandolin, mandocello, fiddle, cuatro, viola and concertina. With thousands of fans on their mailing list, Show of Hands had long wanted to play a concert big enough to gather all those fans together. Different ideas were brought up but none seemed right until London's Royal Albert Hall was suggested; the perfect venue, prestigious and big enough! The undertaking required a huge gamble by the duo and their management, but the show sold out in advance and took place on the evening of March 24, 1996.
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Music of England
Folk Music By Fusive on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
England has a long and rich musical history. The United Kingdom has, like most European countries, undergone a roots revival in the last half of the 20th century. English music has been an instrumental and leading part of this phenomenon, which peaked at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s. Little survives of the early music of England, by which is meant the music that was used by the people before the establishment of musical notation in the medieval period. Much that survives of folk music must have had its origins in this period, although the melodies played by morris dancers and other traditional groups can also be from a later period. For other classes instruments like pipe, tabor, bagpipe shawm, hurdygurdy and crumhorn accompanied folk music and community dance. The fiddle gradually grew in popularity. Differing regional styles of folk music developed, in geographically separated areas such as Northumbria, London and the West Country.
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Appalachian (Mountain) dulcimer
Folk Music By Fusive on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument with three or four strings, although contemporary versions of the instrument can have as many as twelve strings and six courses. The body extends the length of the fingerboard and traditionally has an hourglass, teardrop, triangular, or elliptic