Writer and Folk Musician
A quiet and unassuming man, it’s hard to reconcile the chap who sidles up to us with the boisterous youngster in those classic Top of the Pops re-runs. But let’s get one thing straight: Steve Diggle was there at the birth of punk. There are very few people who can honestly say they were at the forefront of a […]
PREFER CDS? ORDER THE CD FROM BANDCAMP TODAY ‘Midlife’ is a collection of traditional and music hall songs and tunes from around Birmingham and the wider Midlands. As someone who came of age in Birmingham in the mid-90s and only came to traditional folk music later on, I wanted to filter these songs through my […]
Templecombe by The Grizzly Folk This train divides at Salisbury And heads on down to Templecombe Sometimes when I feel cut adrift I wonder if they’ve any room If I sit here and quietly think And hope the guard will pass me by I might alight in Somerset Beneath an open-ended sky With 15-hundred roofs […]
Rachael McShane was the only female member of folk phenomenon, Bellowhead. You probably knew that. If you never saw Bellowhead live or on the TV, you’d have been able to find that much out from the internet. It’s probably why you’re here, reading this article. “Rachael McShane”, you’ll have thought. “She was in Bellowhead. I’ll […]
Here’s a great one for fans of traditional folk that love to see how songs change from place to place. Like many modern listeners, I first encountered ‘There Was an Old Man Came Over the Sea’ on Lankum‘s album, Cold Old Fire [2015] – a haunting, disturbing version featuring a spellbinding performance from singer, Radie Peat. […]
It’s a big weekend for folk music, especially if you’re in London and you’ve got a thing about The Watersons. On Friday, The Gift Band (made up, in part, of Norma Waterson, Eliza Carthy and Martin Carthy), release their latest album, Anchor, on Topic Records (you can order it by clicking here), and that’s swiftly followed […]
This post is as much a tribute to one man as it is as history of ‘The Brave Dudley Boys’. The more you delve deeper into traditional folk music in the UK, the more you encounter certain names – figures that may be little known outside the cannon, and sometimes no better known within it, but […]
I have a kind of modus operandi here on The Grizzly Folk blog. It was created to explore the world of traditional folk music and, as much as I’d like to review and chat to singer-songwriters who play non-trad folk, that’s not what this website is for. Usually, this works quite neatly. Occasionally, however, the […]
If The Guardian is correct in its assertions, the Morris is making a comeback. Maybe it’s because yesterday was Mayday and, for a few brief hours at least, also quite sunny, but a good number of people on the folkie social media channels (myself very much included) were getting quite giddy about the sudden revived interest. […]
Typical, isn’t it? You sit around months waiting for another selection of traditional British folk songs to try, and then seven turn up at once. Well, that’s what comes of spending a day with Martin Carthy.