Barry Dransfield (born 1947 in Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire), is an Englishfolk singer, fiddler, cellist and guitarist. He has appeared as a session musician on numerous albums by other artists, and has released his own albums as well. The Rout of the Blues (1971) was voted Melody Maker folk album of the year. His 1972 album for Polydor simply called Barry Dransfield was voted the rarest folk album in Record Hunter, worth approximately £400 [citation needed]. Unlike most fiddlers (but like some Appalachian players) he is comfortable playing in the "off the chest" position, instead of under the chin.
Together with his brother Robin, he was a member of a bluegrass/old-time band while still in his teens. Always innovative, he generally avoids electric instruments. The instrumental "Blacksmith", on Fiddler's Dream, is a complex set of variations in Romantic Paganini style, with no obvious relation to the song "Blacksmith", but ending with a double-tracked voice of Dransfield singing the opening line, "Oh, A Blacksmith Courted Me". Fiddler's Dream has been re-issued on Castle with many bonus tracks.
In films
Dransfield has composed music for several films for TV and the wide screen: S.O.S. Titanic, Adelaide Harris, Play Away, Samson an Delilah (1985), Ballymena Opera House and The Wreck of the Julie Plante (1985). He acted the part of the blind fiddler in The Bounty (1984) (with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins). In 1986, he changed career to become a so-called "Fiddle Doctor", repairing violins and cellos. In 1994, he joined the Steeleye Span UK tour.
Martin Dominic Forbes Carthy MBE is an English singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in English folk music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, as well as later artists such as Richard Thompson, since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s.
Planxty were an Irish folk music band formed in January 1972, consisting initially of Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Dónal Lunny, and Liam O'Flynn. They transformed and popularized Irish folk music, touring and recording to great acclaim.
Dave Pegg is an English multi-instrumentalist and record producer, primarily a bass guitarist. He is the longest-serving member of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention and has been bassist with a number of folk and rock groups including the Ian Campbell Folk Group and Jethro Tull.
Spirit was an American rock band founded in 1967 and based in Los Angeles. Their most commercially successful single in the United States was "I Got a Line on You". They were also known for their albums, including their self-titled debut album, The Family That Plays Together, Clear, and Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.
Ashley Stephen Hutchings, MBE, sometimes known in early years as "Tyger" Hutchings, is an English bassist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founding member of three noteworthy English folk-rock bands: Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band. Hutchings has overseen numerous other projects, including records and live theatre, and has collaborated on film and television projects.
The Boys of the Lough is a Scottish-Irish Celtic music band active since the 1970s.
Don Francis Bowman "Sugarcane" Harris was an American blues and rock and roll violinist and guitarist. He is considered a pioneer in the amplification of the violin.
Norman L. Blake is a traditional American stringed instrument artist and songwriter. He is half of the eponymous Norman & Nancy Blake band with his wife, Nancy Blake.
The Marshall Tucker Band is an American rock band from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Noted for incorporating blues, country and jazz into an eclectic sound, the Marshall Tucker Band helped establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s. While the band had reached the height of its commercial success by the end of the decade, it has recorded and performed continuously under various line-ups for 50 years. Lead vocalist Doug Gray remains the only original member still active with the band.
The Albion Band, also known as The Albion Country Band, The Albion Dance Band, and The Albion Christmas Band, is a British folk rock band, originally brought together and led by musician Ashley Hutchings. An important grouping in the genre, it has contained or been associated with a large proportion of major English folk performers in its long and fluid history.
Daniel Henry Edward Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist. He has had a long musical career playing with a large variety of other musicians, particularly Richard Thompson and John Martyn.
Claude "Fiddler" Williams was an American jazz violinist and guitarist who recorded and performed into his 90s. He was the first guitarist to record with Count Basie and the first musician to be inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.
Eric Weissberg was an American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist, whose most commercially successful recording was his banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos", featured as the theme of the film Deliverance (1972) and released as a single that reached number 2 in the United States and Canada in 1973.
The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood is an English folk song, forming part of the Robin Hood canon.
Anthony George Coe was an English jazz musician who played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute as well as soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones.
The Fiddler's Dream is a folk / folk-rock album by Dransfield, a short-lived group principally comprising the Dransfield brothers, Robin and Barry. Originally released as an LP in 1976 by Transatlantic, catalogue number TRA 322, featuring cover illustrations by Paul Ellis.
Andy Pyle is a British bassist who is best known for playing with The Kinks from 1976 to 1978. Prior to that, he was in Blodwyn Pig (1968–1972) and Savoy Brown (1972–1974). Later, he played with Wishbone Ash.
Steve Frank Ashley is an English singer-songwriter, recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, writer and graphic designer. Ashley is best known as a songwriter and first gained public recognition for his work with his debut solo album, Stroll On. Taking his inspiration from English traditional songs, Ashley has developed a songwriting style which is contemporary in content while reflecting traditional influences in his melodies, poetry and vocal delivery.
Robin Dransfield is an English folk musician from Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. He plays acoustic guitar and often performed and recorded in a duo with his brother Barry Dransfield. Dransfield began performing in the 1960s, quickly gaining prominence for his "quirky" bluegrass "old-timey" sound. By 1969, Barry and Robin were performing full-time as a duo, frequently playing at the Harrogate Folk Club along with Martin Carthy, Ewan MacColl, and The Watersons. Dransfield recorded several albums during the 1970s, including The Rout of the Blues (1970) and Lord of All I Behold (1971) on the Trailer label. After leaving performing for a time, Robin and Barry reunited to record the album Contrary to Popular Belief in 1977 on the Free Reed label. Through the 1970s Dransfield made appearances at folk festivals around the world, appearing with his brother Barry at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Canada in 1971.
Stroll On is the debut album by British singer-songwriter Steve Ashley. It was released in April 1974 in LP format on Gull Records and was critically acclaimed in the UK, being awarded “Contemporary Folk album of the Year” in the leading monthly folk magazine, Folk Review. It has been described as "a masterful, beautifully textured and gentle epic" and "a masterpiece of its kind – a beautiful, rich and deeply atmospheric collection of very English songs, like a musical impression of Dickens, Victorian Christmas cards and Thomas Hardy’s Wessex with a running concept concerning seasonal change". According to the music collectors' magazine Goldmine, it is "one of the key albums in the entire history of English Folk Rock".
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