James Henry Miller, better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for writing such songs as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Dirty Old Town".
Albert Lancaster Lloyd, usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the British folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. While Lloyd is most widely known for his work with British folk music, he had a keen interest in the music of Spain, Latin America, Southeastern Europe and Australia. He recorded at least six discs of Australian Bush ballads and folk music.
Fellside Recordings is a British independent record label, formed by Paul Adams and Linda Adams in 1976 in Workington, Cumbria, and still run by them.
Anne Patricia Briggs is an English folk singer. Although she travelled widely in the 1960s and early 1970s, appearing at folk clubs and venues in England and Ireland, she never aspired to commercial success or to achieve widespread public acknowledgment of her music. However, she was an influential figure in the British folk revival, being a source of songs and musical inspiration for others such as A. L. Lloyd, Bert Jansch, Jimmy Page, The Watersons, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, and Maddy Prior.
Isla Cameron was a Scottish-born, English-raised actress and singer. AllMusic noted that "Cameron was one of a quartet of key figures in England's postwar folk song revival – and to give a measure of her importance, the other three were Ewan MacColl, A. L. Lloyd, and Alan Lomax". She was a respected and popular folk music performer through the 1950s and early 60s as well as appearing in several films; she focused almost exclusively on her acting career from 1966 onwards. Cameron provided the singing voice for actress Julie Christie's part in the hit 1967 film version of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, but changed career direction and became a film researcher in the early 1970s before her early death in a domestic accident in 1980. One of the traditional songs in her repertoire, "Blackwaterside", recorded by Cameron in 1962, was subsequently popularised by notable "next generation" U.K. folk music performers Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch and Sandy Denny.
Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West was an American folksinger and songwriter. She belonged to the same generation of folk revivalists as Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Her most famous song "500 Miles" is one of America's most popular folk songs. She was described by the English folk musician A. L. Lloyd as "far and away the best of American girl singers in the [folk] revival."
"Young Hunting" is a traditional folk song, Roud 47, catalogued by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 68, and has its origin in Scotland. Like most traditional songs, numerous variants of the song exist worldwide, notably under the title of "Henry Lee" and "Love Henry" in the United States and "Earl Richard" and sometimes "The Proud Girl" in the United Kingdom.
"Bonnie Annie" is a folk ballad recorded from the Scottish and English traditions. Scottish texts are often called Bonnie Annie or The Green Banks of Yarrow, English texts are most often called The Banks of Green Willow. Other titles include The Undutiful Daughter, The High Banks O Yarrow, The Watery Grave, Green Willow, There Was a Rich Merchant that Lived in Strathdinah and The Merchant's Daughter.
The Critics Group, also known as The London Critics Group, was a group of people who met to explore 'how best to apply the techniques of folk-music and drama to the folk revival' under the direction of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, with some participation from Bert Lloyd and Charles Parker. Running for eight years from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, it was not a conventional musical group or band as it had no permanent line-up. Members would perform with each other on an ad-hoc basis as situations demanded.
Sandra Kerr is an English folk singer.
Nancy Kerr is an English folk musician and songwriter, specialising in the fiddle and singing. She is a Principal Lecturer in Folk Music at Newcastle University. She was the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Folk Singer of the Year".
Pete Morton is an English folk singer-songwriter who lives in London, England. According to fRoots, Morton "is amongst the best that the British roots music scene has produced in living memory."
Arnold Martyn Wyndham-Read is an English folk singer, who was a collector and singer of Australian folk music. He lived and worked in Australia from 1958 to 1967 and was subsequently a regular visitor to the country.
Leon Rosselson is an English songwriter and writer of children's books. After his early involvement in the folk music revival in Britain, he came to prominence, singing his own satirical songs, in the BBC's topical TV programme of the early 1960s, That Was The Week That Was. He toured Britain and abroad, singing mainly his own songs and accompanying himself with acoustic guitar.
Louisa "Lou" Jo Killen was an English folk singer from Gateshead, Tyneside, who also played the English concertina.
Dave Burland is an English folk singer and guitarist. A former policeman, he has been performing in English folk clubs since 1968 and has been described by The Guardian as having a "uniquely relaxed singing style".
Roy Harris was a British folk singer known for his role in the starting the folk club movement in southern Wales in the 1960s. He was often referred to as the “gentleman of folk song” due to his warm personality and congeniality as a folk club host. Harris primarily sang unaccompanied sea and military songs. Over the years Harris recorded over a dozen albums, mostly on the Topic Records and Fellside Recordings labels, along with notable British singers including Ewan MacColl, Frankie Armstrong, Martin Carthy and Martyn Wyndham-Read.
Bob Fox is an English folk guitarist and singer, specialising in traditional and contemporary songs of the north-east of England and in particular, the coal mining communities thereof. He is noted for his collaborations with Tom McConville and Stu Luckley, and for solo performances since 1982.
"Hares on the Mountain" is an English folk song. Versions of this song have been collected from traditional singers in England, Canada and the US, and have been recorded by modern folk artists.
Bob Davenport is an English traditional folk singer who has been a leading and influential voice in the British folk revival since the early 1960s.
