It’s your turn
Alison White
My dad has been in many bands throughout his life, playing not only the guitar and harmonica, but in at least one band, the blown bottle. He is a natural performer and he loves to perform; as he would tell you, he’s not the best guitarist or the best singer in the world, but he knows how to sell a song…..
The Bastard
English session
James Bell
It began in late 2008 (I think) out of
a desire to have an English folk session in Oxford, which at the time had a very healthy Irish session,
a Breton session and a Scandinavian session (and maybe a Galician session too?
I can’t remember if it had started by then). There were and are strong English tune sessions and song sessions, but not in town….
From Bard
to Bastard
Tracey Rimmel
I was born into a family of songwriters and music producers, with a published poet for a grandma to boot. It’s not a huge surprise then that I ventured down the same path. My love of music started aged seven, when I learned the classic childhood joy that is primary school recorder. I’m not sure why I enjoyed it so much when my school had a somewhat rigid approach to learning
50 years folking about
Dave Henderson
When you are 15 in 1967 and living on the West Coast of Cumbria your dreams can seem a long way away particularly when they are not centred on rugby league or punching someone with gloves on. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a town where we suddenly launched attacks on unexpecting glove-wearing pensioners , more a mining town; a boxing culture
Finding my Voice
Peter ‘Captain’ Edwards
I arrived with my parents in a small village called Newton near Cambridge from South Africa in 1960, after a period of acceptance by the villagers and school children, I became friends with among others another a young man called Robin from Sawston who convinced me that going to a folk club called ‘The Rob Roy’ upstairs room and sitting on cushions with the Cambridge Crofters performing was the best way to meet young girls especially foreign ones keen to learn English
I was made
for music
Chris Walls (Cee Dub)
I believe we probably come into this world fully formed and if life allows, we follow our path – though sometimes life gets in the way….I remember as a small kid growing up in Enfield North London, listening to music on the transistor radio I had saved for. We had a tape recorder to send and listen to messages with friends in Australia. I would record songs from the radio and I would record my voice….
Musical Wanderlust
Les Ray
Like the other contributors to this page, my life has had its own musical soundtrack. In my case the songs were those to be heard as I was growing up in a Northamptonshire village, losing my innocence at Reading University, spending a decade in exile in Italy and Argentina, to then return to the UK in the 1990s and embark on my own musical adventures with a band and a radio show.
Philip Rundall
I’m now 71 years of age have been addicted to guitars since the age of 14, when I was misled by Bert Weedon into thinking that you can learn to play in a day. With 3 chords under my finger tips I formed a pop group with a school friend on lead guitar, my pal over the road bought a set of drums, a school friend of his played bass guitar and the first Roman Catholic I came into contact with, became the singer. We called ourselves The Stonemakers.
Session Poet
Annie Wilkins
Oh why when it’s my turn to sing
I can never think of anything.
Use the internet to broaden my choice,
What can I find to suit my voice?
Here I go again and again
Searching for that illusive strain
Of song that will delight and amuse.
Oh help is there not one I can choose?
My Folk Family
Maggie Culver
Hello, my name is Maggie, and I live in a small village in Leicesershire. For the first 26 years of marriage, my life centred around bringing up 2 children, and my social scene was motor bike rallies, race meetings and club meetings.
At the age of 54, my husband and I were driving through a village near to where I live, and we saw a sign outside a pub which said FOLK MUSIC ON SUNDAY 8.30. We decided to give it a try and that was my very first introduction to “Folk Music”
The Travelling Life
David and June Wendon
Concertina players, David and June spend their time touring clubs and sessions all over the UK:
We have to-day returned from another month away in which time we have been in twelve counties from Essex along the south of England to Somerset and been singing our way along, or as our van is named ‘Meander’ along
I wanted to be a concert pianist….
Andrew Martin
….but as I couldn’t manage the 4 hours daily practice, I decided to become a drummer.
The mid sixties were an exciting time for British music. I was a boarder at King Edward VI School at Bury St Edmunds where I remember the first two Beatles albums being played to death in the common room. As the sixties advanced music became ever more sophisticated especially when pirate radio was able to broadcast it to the nation while the BBC limited it to about one hour a week.
In search of Duende
Penny Waterhouse
I sing because I am. At that moment of stillness, before the music starts, I am waiting for something to arrive. Something transformative. To take me, other musicians and the audience to another place. Something that is of me, and not me. What am I waiting for?
About Singing
Sheri Kershaw
Some one recently said to me that I sang as if I was performing even when I was rehearsing. A dear friend asked those coming to her 70th birthday celebration to bring an offering, a poem, a piece of writing, music to share. I played and sang, people clapped. I had wanted to give my singing self to and for my friend. It got me thinking.