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

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

Cardboard Fox @ The Seagull

Award winning UK Bluegrass band, Cardboard Fox

Cardboard Fox are a unique and powerful combination of dexterous instrumental playing, memorable songwriting and energetic live shows.

All four musicians have their musical roots in bluegrass but their collective influences reach much further and this shows in their music. Formed in late 2013 in Bath, England, the band features the sibling harmonies of Charlotte and Laura Carrivick (the Carrivick Sisters) on guitar/vocals and fiddle/vocals respectively, the extraordinary talents of young mandolin player Joe Tozer and the driving and technically demanding double bass playing and harmony vocals of John Breese.

The band has toured throughout the UK and Europe as well as appearing in North America, including being the first ever UK band to gain a highly sought after showcase spot at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s 2016 World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Read more: Cardboard Fox @ The Seagull

Folk Song in Eastern England : Traditional Song - Ely 11 May

• Cambridgeshire

Folk Song in Eastern England : Traditional Song event in Ely 11th May 2019

A recent notification from Steve Roud

The Traditional Song Forum (TSF) is an informal co-operative organisation which exists to assist people interested in the subject by holding events and meetings up and down the country to get people together to share enthusiasms, support and information.

We will be holding a meeting in Ely on Saturday 11th May, with the theme for the afternoon session (1pm - 4pm) Folk Song in Eastern England, which will include contributions from local experts on the history of traditional song in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Lincolnshire, and elsewhere in the region. Anyone interested can come along. The event is free of charge - but seating is limited so you must book a ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/traditional-song-forum-meeting-in-ely-cambs-tickets-59113717721

For further information, please contact Steve Roud (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Martin Graebe (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). For more information on the Traditional Song Forum (also free to join), see: http://tradsong.org/