Category: Writing
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Martin Simpson on song collecting, Graham Coxon, the Watersons and the true definition of folk music
It’s a late January evening and you join us as we’re being turned away from a Thai restaurant in Andover, Hampshire. “We have nothing available,” they tell us, doing their best to hide a room full of entirely empty tables. Undeterred, if a little confused, we opt for Plan B. One of our party – a folk…
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Eliza Carthy and the Wayward Band – Big Machine (album review)
There’s a sense among reviewers of Big Machine, Eliza Carthy’s new album on Topic Records, that this collection marks the artist’s coming of age moment. I’m not sure how she must feel about that herself. I imagine she’s lost count of the number of times people have said that of her latest albums over the…
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David Suff on the future of Topic Records and answering the eternal question: what exactly IS folk music?
Pitching up at Normafest a few weeks ago, David Suff was one of the first faces we spotted in main hall. With his exceptional beard (hipsters, take note), the current Mr Topic Records (and acclaimed artist) is not easily missed, and I made a beeline for his stall, as much to try and engage him…
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Normafest 2017 in pictures and videos
Normafest 2017 took place at Whitby Pavilion, January 6-8, 2017. Sadly, Norma Waterson was too ill to attend, as was guest star, Richard Hawley. However, those that did make it were in rude health, the excesses of New Year already a distant memory.
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Hard Times of Old England | Folk From the Attic
Something of a Greatest Hit, as far as folk songs go, “Hard Times of Old England” has been sung by everybody and anybody, from Martin Carthy to Stick in the Wheel. An 18th century song, it appears no fewer than 28 times in the folk archives at Cecil Sharp House, with many of those entries connected…
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Night visiting songs: soggy tales of saucy silliness
On a visit to the Cecil Sharp House library earlier this month, I came across a rather wonderful book called The Sounds of History: Songs and Social Comment by Roy Palmer. I must have been in something of a naughty-minded disposition, as I quickly found my way to the chapter on ‘The Sexes’ – a discourse on…
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Wassailing: everything you wanted to know but never thought to ask
Not enough wassailing is done in this day and age, in my opinion. It’s a lost talent, overdue a comeback, and this year I intend to get right back into it. There’s no time to lose, either – wassailing is best enjoyed over the festive season, and come late January, wassailing is rarely found for…
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The Johnny Marr interview
In my experience, the best interviewees have a tendency to ramble, and in this respect Johnny Marr is right up there with Sir Tom Jones. Obviously infatuated with his subject, Marr is fast becoming the man the magazines go to when they need a musicologist’s point of view. Since his early teenage years, he has lived…