Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as Richard Thompson, since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s.
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.
David Cyril Eric Swarbrick was an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. His style has been copied or developed by almost every British and many world folk violin players who have followed him. He was one of the most highly regarded musicians produced by the second British folk revival, contributing to some of the most important groups and projects of the 1960s, and he became a much sought-after session musician, which led him throughout his career to work with many of the major figures in folk and folk rock music.
The Watersons were an English folk group from Hull, Yorkshire. They performed mainly traditional songs with little or no accompaniment. Their distinctive sound came from their closely woven harmonies. They have been called the "most famous family in English folk music".
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.
Norma Christine Waterson was an English singer and songwriter, best known as one of the original members of The Watersons, a celebrated English traditional folk group. Other members of the group included her brother Mike Waterson and sister Lal Waterson, a cousin John Harrison and, in later incarnations of the group, her husband Martin Carthy.
Norman L. Blake is a traditional American stringed instrument artist and songwriter. He is half of the eponymous Norman & Nancy Blake band with his wife, Nancy Blake.
British folk rock is a form of folk rock which developed in the United Kingdom from the mid 1960s, and was at its most significant in the 1970s. Though the merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the success of "The House of the Rising Sun" by British band the Animals in 1964 was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to "go electric", in which, like the Animals, he brought folk and rock music together, from which other musicians followed. In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on their Beatles for Sale album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the American band the Byrds, who released their recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" in April 1965, setting off the mid-1960s American folk rock movement. A number of British groups, usually those associated with the British folk revival, moved into folk rock in the mid-1960s, including the Strawbs, Pentangle, and Fairport Convention.
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.
There has been a folk festival in the coastal town of Sidmouth in South West England in the first week of August every year since 1955, attracting tens of thousands of visitors to over 700 diverse events.
Kathryn Williams is an English singer-songwriter who to date has released 14 studio albums, written and arranged for a multitude of artists, and was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Music Prize.
Women in Docs are an Australian independent folk pop music duo consisting of Chanel Lucas on lead vocals, guitar and bass guitar; and Roz Pappalardo on lead vocals, guitar and harmonica. They formed in Townsville, Queensland in 1998 as Roz and Chanel but soon changed their name and have released three studio albums, Under a Different Sky (2001), Red Wine and Postcards (2006) and Carousel (2013). The group have toured throughout Australia, New Zealand, United States, Europe, and Asia. Pappalardo has also released a solo album.
"The Newry Highwayman" is a traditional Irish or British folk song about a criminal's life, deeds, and death. It is also found in Ireland, the USA and Canada with titles such as "Rambling Boy" and "Rude And Rambling Man". The earliest known version is from 1788, likely printed by John Brown, in a chapbook entitled "The irish robbers's [sic] adventure. To which is added An Elegy on the Death of Captain Allen." The earliest broadside is from 1824. Some versions mention "Mansfield" and this is sometimes taken to be William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield (1706-1793). The 1788 version mentions "Reddans Town" instead of Newry, though the rest of the song is nearly identical to later versions. British variants are generally classified as Roud 490; American variants are classified as Laws L12.
Fit as a Fiddle is an album by Natalie MacMaster. It was reissued by Rounder Records in 1997.
Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid 20th century and afterwards which were associated with traditional folk music. Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. The most common name for this new form of music is also "folk music", but is often called "contemporary folk music" or "folk revival music" to make the distinction. The transition was somewhat centered in the US and is also called the American folk music revival. Fusion genres such as folk rock and others also evolved within this phenomenon. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, it often shares the same English name, performers and venues as traditional folk music; even individual songs may be a blend of the two.
Maria Gilhooley, who records under the name Marry Waterson, is a singer, songwriter and visual artist. A member of the Waterson-Knight-Carthy family musical dynasty, Waterson is described as having "thrived on communal music making while developing highly original and distinctly English performance styles of [her] own."
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".
Bright Phoebus, fully titled Bright Phoebus: Songs by Lal & Mike Waterson, is a folk rock album by Lal and Mike Waterson. It was recorded in May 1972 with musical assistance from various well-known members of the British folk rock scene. The album failed to make an impact on its original release, but it was subsequently championed by many musicians, including Billy Bragg, Arcade Fire, Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. For years the album was difficult to obtain. In 2017, a re-release of Bright Phoebus was announced and shortly thereafter pulled from the market for legal reasons.
The discography of Dave Swarbrick, an English folk musician and singer-songwriter, consists of 11 solo studio albums, and many other albums with other bands and musicians, most notably with British folk rock band Fairport Convention, with whom he was a leading member and violinist for over fifteen years. He also appears as a guest musician on the albums of a large number of other artists.
Gift is the first joint album released by mother-and-daughter English folk music duo Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson. It was the winner of the Best Album category of the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where its opening track "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" also won Best Traditional Track.
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