The Bridge in the Club Tent at Cambridge Folk Festival 2019

• Cambridgeshire

Strumming and Dreaming

from Les Ray

The undersigned is delighted and privileged to be involved in running The Bridge, the umbrella group for folk clubs, sessions and open mics around the Cambridge area that we launched in 2017. Last year we were invited to organise some music for the Club Tent on the Saturday afternoon of Cambridge Folk Festival (see my column in issue 144), and I’m please to say we’ve been invited back this year.

We’ll be packing a huge variety of fine music by young and not-so-young performers into our three hours. The promising youngsters include Lizzy Hardingham from Hertfordshire, who won the Royston Folk Club Young Artists Award last year, I Claudia and Josh Robins from Cambridge, the former an exciting, eclectic performer and the latter a fine songwriter with an excellent selection of covers (he can often be seen busking in Cambridge).

Two more experienced acts are When Rivers Meet and 4-piece band DodoBones. When Rivers Meet are a blues and roots rock duo from Essex, and exciting live act who combine well crafted self-penned songs and reworked traditionals. DodoBones, from Hertfordshire, are an acoustic indie band with an ironic-pop edge.

Our ‘veteran’ this year is Terry Hiscock, a founder member of the band Hunter Muskett, who were formed back in 1969. After two albums they eventually wound up the band in 1974, but reformed in 2010 to record a third album and return to performing. Terry will be performing his own beautifully crafted songs, accompanying his fine voice with skilful guitar playing.

Cambridge 105 Radio are hoping to be broadcasting from the Cherry Hinton site again this year, including a special Festival Edition of my show Strummers and Dreamers, so look out for details on the station’s website closer to the time. For performer profiles and photos and website links, check out The Bridge website.

https://www.cambridgebridge.co.uk

https://cambridge105.co.uk

https://www.cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival

Dale Stor at The Blue Boar Maldon

• Essex
• Advert

VIRTUOSO New Orleans pianist, singer and raconteur Dale Storr - one of the big hits of the Blues at the Barns 2018 festival - is returning, by popular demand, at the Blue Boar, Maldon in early June.

Dale will play again in the Long Room at the historic Blue Boar Hotel. on Friday, June 7, reprising his wonderfully-entertaining "Sounds of New Orleans" show, playing tribute to Crescent City piano greats, such as Dr John, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino and James Brooker.

A seven-times British Blues Awards nominee and winner of the 2015 Buxton Fringe Festival Best Musical Performance Award, Dale is being brought back to Maldon by Blues at the Barns promoter, Burnham musician, writer and broadcaster Tim Aves.

Tim said: "Dale launched our bi-monthly Friday night series last year and was a big hit with a local crowd, which was no surprise, as he's an amazing musician and a true enthusiast for the music of all those great N'Awlins performers.

Read more: Dale Stor at The Blue Boar Maldon

Earache- May 2019 Edition

• Earache

(for those with a finger on the pulse)

Ramblings

Steve Eamer and Suze Close We've noticed a drop off in attendance at some venues in recent times, some of it maybe to do with the uncertain economic climate in which we live, and maybe because it can be difficult to ascertain what's going on where at the moment. As it happens and fortuitously our information and data correspondent Vince Matthews has been updating a gig list for general use and we are able to bring you exclusive access to his deliberations, aided by reference to Mardles, Adrian from King's Lynn and Philippa from Suffolk and various snippetts gleaned on the way.

Read more: Earache- May 2019 Edition

I looked East and I looked West

• Suffolk

by Simon Haines and George Monger

I looked East and I looked West, was the title of a weekend to celebrate the life and music of Julia Clifford, organised by Katie and John Howson and held at the John Peel Centre in Stowmarket on the weekend of 26-28 April.

I was not able to attend the whole weekend, so this is necessarily a partial – in both senses of the word - account of what went on.

Julia Clifford (1914-1997), was a wonderful fiddle player born into a musical family in Lisheen, Co. Kerry, in an area known as Sliabh Luachra, renowned for its poets and traditional musicians. Through seminal recordings made in the 1970s, Julia and her brother Denis Murphy helped define what is now a well-known genre of Irish traditional music. Julia and her husband John Clifford, also a musician, had been living in London since the 1940s, but shortly after the recordings came out, they moved out to Thetford in Norfolk, and as far as publically available information goes, they all but disappeared from view. However, this period, and especially after 1981 when John died, was actually a busy period of music-making for Julia, with a younger generation of enthusiasts and a new audience on the English folk scene.

Read more: I looked East and I looked West