My guest bloggers this week are Megan & Joe Henwood - current holders of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 2 Young Folk Award, who stunned the judges at last year's final.
They'll be telling us what life has been like since winning the award and also what plans they have for the future.
Find out how to enter the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 2 Young Folk Award 2010.
writes:
Well the past five months have been quite a whirlwind for my brother and me - I have to say the events of last December still haven't quite sunk in!
The whole experience was just so fantastic and quite honestly, neither of us expected to even get to the finals stage in the competition due to the amazing standard of the others.
I will remember that night at The Queen Elizabeth Hall for the rest of my life, although much of it I recall as being like a surreal dream, I just couldn't believe what was happening!
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writes:
I had a conversation with a famous folk singer many years ago, wherein he predicted that one day, comedy would replace folk music as a "club-based" entertainment, and that one by one all the folk clubs across the country would close down and be replaced by comedy clubs.
I guess he was kind of right, though as usual, the folk club scene has put up an admirable struggle when faced with adversity.
Personally, I find a lot of stand-up comedy more irritating than entertaining, with some notable exceptions, so I'm doubly dissatisfied with this turn of events.
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writes:
It's lunchtime in The Bridge Hotel, a stone's throw from Newcastle's city centre. The River Tyne slides by below me, the elegant building is looking pleased with itself on the opposite bank, and above me, the High Level Bridge is pointing wearily towards Gateshead, Birtley and the sunny south.
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I've long been in awe of
Paul Brady both as a musician and as a singer. Ever since his early days with and his sojourn with after
Christy Moore left, I've been amazed at the man's talent.
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It struck me, as I was driving back from Hastings last week, that of all the peoples of Europe, England has the least respect, interest and pride in her own music, song and traditions.
I don't say this lightly and it is more than tinged with a hint of sadness, but it seems to me that - for whatever reason - the English have pretty much lost contact with their roots.
I'll give you an example...
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You probably won't be interested but I need to get it off my chest anyway. Last bank holiday weekend I made a round trip of almost 800 miles to Hastings and back to watch a lot of people covered in leaves run round the streets of Hastings in a state of hop-aided
excitement. This went on for most of the day, after which they killed a bush. It was worth it.
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writes:
Having just completed my annual Spring Madness (4 tours in 3 months) I'm back at home taking it fairly easy. One of the things that is filling my time a bit is organising a new folk club at my local.
We've got the excellent
coming along at the end of the month and there are flyers to be distributed, posters to be stuck up, emails to be circulated etc etc.
I've been a fan of Pete's for many years, not only as a singer/instrumentalist/songwriter/ flat-footer extraordinaire, but also as someone who, as a part of 'Ryburn 3 Step',
is very committed to community music making, running regular sessions, singers clubs, folk dance workshops, Mummers plays etc. in and around the Ryburn valley.
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My guest blogger this week is the inimitable .
You can hear an interview with Jon as well as tracks from his brand new solo album Songs From The Floodplain on the Mike Hardind shownext Wednesday, 13 May at 1900.
writes:
It is with significant effort of will that I am prising myself away from the excellent new biography of , 'Lowside of the Road' by Barney Hoskyns in order to write this blog.
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I had a heck of a lot of emails after this week's special (which you can listen again to on my website) - the last time the e-bag was as full was after the special we did some years back.
Many of this week's emails talked about Christy's time in the folk clubs over here.
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