The radio ballad is an audio documentary format created by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, and Charles Parker in 1958. It combines four elements of sound: songs, instrumental music, sound effects, and, most importantly, the recorded voices of those who are the subjects of the documentary. The latter element was revolutionary; previous radio documentaries had used either professional voice actors or prepared scripts.
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.
Jeannie Robertson was a Scottish folk singer.
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.
Frankie Armstrong is an English singer and voice teacher. She has worked as a singer in the folk scene and the women's movement and as a trainer in social and youth work. Her repertoire ranges from traditional ballads to music-hall and contemporary songs, often focusing on the lives of women.
Isla St Clair is a Scottish singer.
The City Waites is a British early music ensemble. Formed in the early 1970s, they specialise in English music of the 16th and 17th centuries from the street, tavern, theatre and countryside — the music of ordinary people. They endeavour to appeal to a wide general audience as well as to scholars. They have toured the UK, much of Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and the USA, performing everywhere from major concert halls and universities to village squares. Collaborations include the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe. They can be heard on several movie and TV soundtracks; they broadcast frequently and have made more than 30 CDs.
Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West was a US-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."
John Tams is an English actor, singer, songwriter, composer and musician born in Holbrook, Derbyshire, the son of a publican. He first worked as a reporter for the Ripley & Heanor News later working for BBC Radio Derby and BBC Radio Nottingham. Tams had an early part in The Rainbow (1988), and may be best known for playing a regular supporting role in the ITV drama series Sharpe, as rifleman Daniel Hagman. He also co-wrote the music for each film alongside Dominic Muldowney.
"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.
Paddy Tunney was an Irish traditional singer, poet, writer, raconteur, lilter and songwriter. He was affectionately known as the Man of Songs.
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.
Steve Tilston is an English folk singer-songwriter and guitarist.
Folk Songs of the Hills is a 1947 album by American singer Merle Travis. It is a collection of traditional songs from his home of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, including original compositions evoking working life on the railroads and in the coal mines. Each song, accompanied by Travis on his own acoustic guitar, is introduced by a short narrative. Because of these characteristics, the album can be considered an early example of the concept album in popular music, along with Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads and Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours. First issued as a 78 rpm box set album in 1947, this collection has remained in print in LP and CD reissues up to the present, with additional tracks from the same period added in later editions.
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".
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.
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.
