Tag: Interviews
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Steve Roud interview: What is folk music, exactly?
Over the eight months I’ve been running this blog, I have – because it genuinely interests me – repeatedly asked interviewees for their folk music definition. It hasn’t been terribly easy, to be honest with you. Some react well, clearly delighted to be asked the very question they’ve been secretly pondering for years themselves, while…
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Martin Simpson: The Trails and Tribulations interview
And so, here we are – my second Martin Simpson interview in the space of half a year. Is Grizzly Folk turning into a Martin Simpson fansite, you might wonder? The answer’s no. While I’m amazed as any other guitarist by what the man does, I think both of us would feel a little uneasy…
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The Doc Rowe interview: “I’ve gone to places and missed the ceremony by 19 years because they only do it every 20 years and I’d got the date wrong”
When we met Doc Rowe earlier this year, we turned up with a list of questions and an hour set aside. We’d have been better advised to burn the notepad and clear our diary for the next month. Boy, that man can talk. But, then, when you have so much to say, it’s hardly surprising. The…
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Lisa Knapp on “Till April is Dead”, collaborating with guitar legends and the immortal importance of the shipping forecast
I first heard Lisa Knapp when I came back from living in Japan. In the decade I’d been there, I’d found myself drawn into a musical scene that centred around a duo called Tenniscoats – a couple who mix fragments of acoustic performance into weird and wonderful soundscapes. I was keen to find someone in the UK doing…
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Sam Sweeney: “We don’t have the budget for leaping in Eliza’s band”
It took yonks to track Sam Sweeney down, but only a few minutes to realise why that was. Just take a look at this interview. The man is involved in a million things at once and incredibly passionate about doing them without half-measures. He joined Bellowhead on the cusp of adulthood, and he seems to…
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Paul Sartin on Bellowhead, Faustus, The Transports and a life in folk music
This week’s folk conversation is sprawling to say the least, but that’s to be expected when your chatting with a man who has been a fiddle and oboe player in Bellowhead, a musicologist, one of the blokes in Faustus, one of two Pauls in Belshazzar’s Feast and the musical director of the triumphant recent production…
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Stick in the Wheel on their new field recordings, gentrification and why there won’t be a folk revival anytime soon
Stick in the Wheel barely need an introduction these days. On the folk scene, they’re as known for their stark and direct debut album as they are for their similarly unflinching performances, and their leap from local pubs to festival stages has been swift. Meeting singer Nicola Kearey and guitarist Ian Carter in the basement cafe…
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From Lynched to Lankum: Ian Lynch on folk song collecting and the ‘pure drop’
Lynched or Lankum; Lankum or Lynched? Rumours have been doing the rounds for some time that the acclaimed Dublin four-piece would be changing their name, and sure enough, in the days following this interview, they published the following statement, confirming that from here on in, Lankum they would be:
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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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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…