Hi, what a great weekend of music we had last weekend. Tom Lewis put on a great show at Dreamers with lots of great chorus songs and lots of really interesting chat about his past life and about the history of the songs. We’ve got some great guests coming up over the next few months but the evening with Tom will be hard to beat.
And the day before some of us had a lovely session at St Day Old Church with Jon and Jill on top form. It seems the community has spent a long time converting the Old Church into a performance space – and were then prevented from using it by covid so this was the first proper event of the first proper season. If you haven’t been, it’s a lovely space with lots of historic information around the walls. Well worth a visit if you can – not sure what happens to the audience if it rains, there’s no roof now?!
Some more Singers nights coming up before the visit of Na Mara in June – more of them later. And the next Cornish Zoom Folk Club is on 27th May.
Lots of events coming up as we move into summer:-
Tonight (Friday 19th May, 7.30), there’s Our Atlantic Roots, described as an uplifting blend of Americana and British alt-folk, poetic and beautifully authentic lyrics with incredibly tight harmonies. This is at the Studio 4 Dance Community Venue, Unit 4, Vicarage Place, St Austell, PL25 5YY. Tickets £10 from CRBO 01726 63513 (Online – crbo.co.uk/restarts) or at the door. They also have a video of Golden Hour – https://youtu.be/JDM1WSdsm-M
Thanks to Graham and to Wadebridge Folk Club for telling me about an interesting concert on 27th May (7.30) at The Little Theatre in Padstow with Linde Nijland and Bert Ridderbos from Holland. Linde’s own songs together with some Sandy Denny and some traditional. Tickets from Aloft, 5 Duke Street, Padstow or 01841 532548.
Last chance to buy discounted early bird tickets for Sidmouth is midnight on Sunday 21st May. Other tickers obviously available for this huge programme. Not only the usual range of lunchtime, afternoon and evening concerts from top performers but plenty of other stuff. At the Manor Pavilion Theatre, for example, there’s a series of presentations ranging from the Great War through to step dancing and with a song cycle “Stolen from God” written by Reg Meuross about the slave trade in the south-west. The Festival runs form 4th to 11th August.
Cornwall Folk Festival has just announced a series of tributes to John the Fish on 27th August. Mic McReadie is organising this and they are hoping to get a number of excellent performers (including Phil Beer). Watch the web-site – the Festival runs from 24th to 28th August
Following up from last week, the Devoran Acoustic sessions say that tickets ar eon sale now for Phil Beer on 16th August and will be going on sale shortly for Steve Knightley on September 9th
Folk Life UK (including the SW edition the print edition of which runs to 56 A4 pages) is always worth a look for news of folk events, songs and a range of articles. It’s at www.folklife.uk
Live to Your Living Room are about to take a break for the summer but have a real highlight to end the season with The Young ‘Uns on Tuesday 30th May at 7.30. The Young’uns live shows are renowned. With heart-on-the-sleeve storytelling, beautiful lyrics, warm harmonies and relentless repartee, Sean Cooney, Michael Hughes and David Eagle sing life-affirming folk songs for today. This is streamed live from the North Wall in Oxford. Tickets from Events | Live Music Online Gig | Live to your Living Room
That’s all for this week, hope to see you on Sunday at Dreamers
Nigel