The Pogues are an English or Anglo-Irish Celtic punk band fronted by Shane MacGowan and others, founded in King's Cross, London, in 1982, as Pogue Mahone, an anglicisation of the Irish phrase póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse". Initially poorly received in traditional Irish music circles—the celebrated musician Tommy Makem called them "the greatest disaster ever to hit Irish music"—the band were subsequently credited with reinvigorating the genre. They later incorporated influences from other musical traditions, including jazz, flamenco, and Middle Eastern music.
William Mark Wainwright, known professionally as William Orbit, is an English musician and record producer who has sold 200 million recordings worldwide of his own work, his production and song-writing work. He is a recipient of multiple Grammy Awards, Ivor Novello Awards and other music industry awards.
Kathryn Tickell, OBE, DL is an English musician, noted for playing the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle.
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her first major commercial success came with her third and fourth albums, Joan Armatrading (1976) and Show Some Emotion (1977), and she continues to play live and record studio albums. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996.
Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson.
June Tabor is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
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.
Oysterband is a British folk rock and folk punk band formed in Canterbury around 1976.
Martin Stewart Simpson is an English folk singer, guitarist and songwriter. His music reflects a wide variety of influences and styles, rooted in Britain, Ireland, America and beyond. He builds a purposeful, often upbeat voice on a spare picking style.
Jim Moray is an English folk singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
3 Mustaphas 3 is a British world music band formed in 1982. Its core members are Ben Mandelson, Tim Fienburgh (1954–2008), Colin Bass, and Nigel Watson, around which orbit many other Mustaphas – all supposed to be the nephews of Uncle Patrel Mustapha. They claim to originate from the Balkans, but play music from various parts of the world. Their slogan, "Forward in all directions!", is an expression of this musical diversity. Active at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, they have now stopped producing and performing together, but haven't officially disbanded.
Amazorblades were one of the early British punk rock groups, as chronicled in Henrik Poulsen's book 77: The Year of Punk and New Wave, from Brighton, England. They released a single, "Common Truth" c/w "Mess Around" on Chiswick Records. It was later featured on the Long Shots, Dead Certs And Odds On Favourites compilation album.
Colin Bass is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Since 1979, he has been a member of the British progressive rock band Camel, who, after a ten-year hiatus due to the ill health of bandleader Andrew Latimer, returned to active touring in 2013. From 1984 to 1992, he was also a core figure in the pioneering World Music group 3 Mustaphas 3. He has also made two solo albums under his own name and three albums recorded in Indonesia under the name Sabah Habas Mustapha. The title track of the first, "Denpasar Moon", became a hugely popular song in Indonesia in the mid-1990s and has been covered by over 50 Indonesian, Malaysian, Japanese and Filipino artists. As a record producer he has worked with a diverse range of international artists including: the Klezmatics (USA), SambaSunda (Indonesia), Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird (USA) Krar Collective (Ethiopia), Etran Finatawa (Niger) and 9Bach (Wales) amongst others. As a guest artist he has appeared on albums by a number of internationally acclaimed artists including top Malian singing star Oumou Sangare, playing on all tracks of her 1993 Ko Sira album.
fRoots was a specialist music magazine published in the UK between 1979 and 2019. It specialised in folk and world music, and featured regular compilation downloadable albums, with occasional specials. In 2006, the circulation of the magazine was 12,000 worldwide.
Julie Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who sings primarily in Scottish Gaelic.
Ian A. Anderson is an English magazine editor, folk musician and broadcaster.
The Cooper Brothers are a Canadian southern rock band founded in Ottawa, Ontario, by brothers Brian Cooper, Dick Cooper and their long-time friend Terry King.
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".
Swanvesta Social Club were founded in St Albans, and are a British Cuban-influenced group.
Ragged Kingdom is a 2011 album by June Tabor and Oysterband. Tabor and Oysterband had collaborated previously on the 1990 album Freedom and Rain. The majority of the tracks are interpretations of traditional folk songs but also includes covers of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", Bob Dylan's "Seven Curses" PJ Harvey's "That Was My Veil" and the Dan Penn & Chips Moman soul standard "Dark End of the Street".
