The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.
James Keelaghan is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Keelaghan is now based in Perth, Ontario. Many of the lyrics in his songs display a concern about social problems and justice in society. Examples of such themes include "Kiri's Piano", about the internment of Japanese Canadians, and "October 70", about the FLQ crisis, inspired by events and figures in Canadian history. Some of his songs concern tragic historical events, such as "Fires of Calais," about the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation of Allied troops during World War II, and "Cold Missouri Waters," about the Mann Gulch fire of 1949. Keelaghan's lilting baritone voice, driving rhythm guitar, and a sense of scene and narrative result in his ability to bridge traditional folk music with roots revival and Celtic music.
Chris Wood is an English songwriter and composer who plays fiddle, viola and guitar, and sings. He is a practitioner of traditional English dance music, including Morris and other rituals and ceremonies, but his repertoire also includes much French folk music and traditional Québécois material. He worked for many years in a duo with button accordion/melodeon player Andy Cutting: Wood & Cutting were one of the most influential acts on the English folk music scene. Q Magazine gave their "Live at Sidmouth" album four stars and put the duo "at the forefront of the latest wave of British music acts". One of his first recordings was playing bass and percussion on "Jack's Alive" (1980) the first album by the Oysterband.
Mark Erelli is an American singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and touring folk musician from Reading, Massachusetts who earned a master's degree in evolutionary biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before pursuing a career in music. Erelli has released nine solo albums and three collaborative albums. His self-titled debut album was released in 1999, the same year that he won the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Award. His first recording for the Signature Sounds label, Compass & Companion, spent ten weeks in the Top Ten on the Americana Chart. Erelli has worked as a side musician for singer songwriters Lori McKenna and Josh Ritter. He has performed at various music festivals and shared the stage with John Hiatt, Dave Alvin, and Gillian Welch. Erelli's song “People Look Around”, which he co-wrote with Catie Curtis, was the Grand Prize winner at the 2005 International Songwriting Competition. His songs have been recorded by Ellis Paul, Vance Gilbert, Antje Duvekot, and Red Molly.
Karine Polwart is a Scottish singer-songwriter. She writes and performs music with a strong folk and roots feel, her songs dealing with a variety of issues from alcoholism to genocide. She has been most recognised for her solo career, winning three awards at the BBC Folk Awards in 2005, and was previously a member of Malinky and Battlefield Band.
The Spooky Men's Chorale is a group of Australian male singers, formed in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in 2001.
Malinky is a Scottish folk band specialising in Scots song, formed in autumn 1998.
Krista Detor is a singer-songwriter and pianist from Bloomington, Indiana whose music has been featured on NPR and with Mike Harding on the BBC.
Kirsty McGee is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist from Manchester. She is well known within the British Folk scene although her music references Americana, Blues, Jazz and Rockabilly genres, and is influenced by the style of the Beatnik subculture. Her lyrics are typically deeply personal and introspective, and deal with a variety of subjects from politics to storytelling. She has worked with musicians such as Marc Ribot, Mike West, Danny Schmidt, Karine Polwart and Inge Thomson, and opened for Suzanne Vega, Eddi Reader and Capercaillie.
Shrewsbury Folk Festival is an annual festival of folk and world music and traditional dance held in the town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England.
The Cecil Sharp Project was a multi-artist, residential commission to create new material based on the life and collections of Cecil Sharp, founding father of the British folk revival.
The Burns Unit was an eight-piece Scottish-Canadian folk music supergroup. The band formed in 2006, after the musicians met at Burnsong, a Scottish songwriting retreat. The band members come from varying musical genres including folk, pop and rap, and all have either acclaimed solo careers or are also members of other bands. The band had its debut concert in 2009 in Glasgow, Scotland, at the Celtic Connections music festival. In 2010, they released their debut album, Side Show. They continued to perform gigs and at festivals during 2011-2012, then amicably split, with members continuing their own respective careers.
Lucy Victoria Ward is an English singer-songwriter from Derby, England. She performs, with a voice described as expressive and powerful, traditional English folk songs as well as her own material. Three of her albums, Adelphi Has to Fly, Single Flame and I Dreamt I Was a Bird, have been critically acclaimed and have each received four-starred reviews in the British national press.
Traces is the fifth studio album by Scottish folk musician Karine Polwart, released in 2012. It was her first solo album in four years, though she had appeared as part of the collaborations Darwin Song Project, The Burns Unit and The Fruit Tree Foundation.
Sam Carter is a British guitarist, singer and songwriter, originally from the English Midlands but more recently based in Sheffield. He has released four albums of mainly original material which fall loosely into the folk/roots category. Carter is the winner of the "Horizon" award for best newcomer at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2010. Highly regarded as an instrumentalist, contemporary Jon Boden of Bellowhead described him as 'the finest English-style finger-picking guitarist of his generation, and former BBC Radio Two folk show presenter Mike Harding wrote that Carter was "one of the most gifted acoustic guitarists of his generation.". As a songwriter, Carter marries a traditionally English narrative style with elements of American gospel, shapenote, R&B and folk-rock has been described as an "impressively original" performer. Some commentators consider that Carter's guitar and vocal style is similar to that of noted British iconoclasts John Martyn and Roy Harper, whilst his lyrical perspective has further invited comparison with the work of Richard Thompson.
Corrina Hewat is a Scottish harpist and composer who was awarded Music Tutor of the Year at Na Trads in 2013. She has worked with poet Robin Robertson and has written music for the Dunedin Consort. She sings with Karine Polwart and Annie Grace in what they describe as a 'girly trio' and also appeared with Polwart on Lau's 2009 Arc Light album. She has collaborated with Patsy Reid and others as The Unusual Suspects. In July 2008 she performed with Bella Hardy at London's Royal Albert Hall as part of the first Folk Prom. In 2006 she appeared on Kathryn Tickell's The Sky Didn’t Fall album.
Adelphi Has to Fly, the debut album of British singer-songwriter Lucy Ward, was released in the United Kingdom by Navigator Records on 13 June 2011. It was critically acclaimed and received a four-starred review in The Guardian.
Single Flame, the second album of British singer-songwriter Lucy Ward, was released in the United Kingdom by Navigator Records on 19 August 2013. It was critically acclaimed and received a four-starred review in The Guardian.
Songs of Separation was a music project created in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to explore through the medium of music ideas of separation. It was organised by double-bass player Jenny Hill and brought together ten female folk musicians from Scotland and England for one week in June 2015 on the Isle of Eigg. The resulting album won the "Best Album" category in the 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
Rachel Newton is a Scottish singer and harpist. As well as playing both acoustic and electric harp she also plays viola, fiddle, piano and harmonium. She performs solo as well as in the bands The Shee, The Furrow Collective and Boreas and was formerly a member of the Emily Portman Trio. She was a member of the Lost Words Spell Songs project and is a co-founder of The Bit Collective, a group campaigning for equality in folk music.
