Levellers are an English folk rock and anarcho-punk band formed in Brighton, East Sussex, in 1988, consisting of Mark Chadwick, Jeremy Cunningham, Charlie Heather (drums), Jon Sevink (violin), Simon Friend, Matt Savage (keyboards) and Dan Donnelly. Taking their name from the Levellers political movement, the band released their first EP in 1989 and LP in 1990, with international success following upon signing to China Records and the release of their second album Levelling the Land. The band were among the most popular indie bands in Britain in the early 1990s, and performed at the Glastonbury Festival, first in 1992, then in 1994, where they performed as the headline act on The Pyramid Stage to a record crowd of 300,000 people. They continue to record and tour.
Spiers and Boden are an English folk duo. John Spiers plays melodeon and concertina, while Jon Boden sings and plays fiddle and guitar while stamping the rhythm on a stomp box. Spiers and Boden were founding members of the folk band Bellowhead.
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.
Kerfuffle were a four-piece English folk band, originally formed in 2001 around the East Midlands and South Yorkshire regions of the UK, initially comprising Hannah James, Sam Sweeney, Chris Thornton-Smith (guitar) and Tom Sweeney. Thornton-Smith was replaced by Jamie Roberts in 2007. Kerfuffle disbanded in August 2010.
Giles Lewin is a British violinist and bagpiper. Currently a member of The Carnival Band, he was also a founding member of the folk band, Bellowhead.
Burlesque is the first full-length album by Bellowhead.
Faustus are a folk music duo based in the UK. The all-male membership brings together multi-instrumentalist musicians active across many other leading bands in the UK folk scene: Benji Kirkpatrick, Saul Rose and formerly Paul Sartin. They have been described as “bloke-folk” and aiming to “rescue contemporary folk from the curse of feyness”. In 2007 they received a 75th anniversary award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and they were nominated as best group at the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
Jon Boden is a singer, composer and musician, best known as lead singer and main arranger of Bellowhead. His first instrument is the fiddle and he is a proponent of "English traditional fiddle style" and also of "fiddle singing", both of which he employed in Bellowhead, in the duo Spiers & Boden, and previously as a member of Eliza Carthy’s Ratcatchers.
E.P.Onymous is the debut EP by Bellowhead.
Matachin is the second album by Bellowhead, released on 22 September 2008. Its title refers, to 'An old dance with swords, masks and bucklers; a sword dance' that may have influenced the Cotswold Morris dance. It has been described as "...a magnificently murky and rum-sodden collection of 11 traditional and original songs from the 11 piece band who defy easy categorisation".
Sam Sweeney is a multi-instrumental English folk musician.
Hedonism is the third album by Bellowhead, released on 4 October 2010. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios and was produced by John Leckie. The band also developed a new ale named after the album. Some of the band members took part in the brewing process.
Live at Shepherds Bush Empire is a live DVD by folk band Bellowhead, recorded in 2007 on the Burlesque tour and released in 2009.
Hedonism Live is the second live DVD by folk band Bellowhead. It was recorded in May 2011 at the O2 Academy Bournemouth.
Broadside is the fourth full album by Bellowhead, released on 15 October 2012.
Revival is the fifth studio album by Bellowhead. It was announced at their 10th anniversary concerts in Manchester and London.
"Yarmouth Town" is a traditional English song. It is a shanty about the town of Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast. It recounts a story of a young woman, the daughter of a pub landlord, who takes many lovers amongst the sailors passing through the port.
Justin Thurgur is a British trombonist and composer/arranger.
Paul Sartin was an English singer, instrumentalist, composer and arranger, specialising in oboe and violin. He was best known for his work with the folk band Bellowhead, but also played with three-piece Faustus and the folk/comedy duo Belshazzar's Feast.
Belshazzar's Feast were an English folk music duo comprising singer/oboist/fiddler Paul Sartin and piano accordionist Paul Hutchinson. They have a reputation for slapstick spoken, physical and musical comedy as well as fine musicianship.
