PROGRAMME   

Autumn 2009

 6th September - Mick Ryan and Paul Downes

20th September - Martin and Shan Graebe

When Shan was a teenager, a customer in her grandfather's South London pub, who knew she enjoyed singing, gave her four books of folk songs. They were soon marked heavily with her notes and arrangements as she started to sing at school and church concerts and even on BBC Radio. Her interest in song continued but family life took precedence until she started singing in public again ten years ago.

Martin also sang at school and discovered folk music at University. He was drawn to English traditional song and started to write songs using ideas from traditional sources. The discovery of previously unknown manuscripts from Sabine Baring-Gould in 1992 led to his interest in Baring-Gould's work becoming a passion. Since then he has worked on indexing, transcribing and writing about the songs and the singers from whom they were collected.

Shan and Martin met in 2000 and started to sing together in 2003. Their first album together, 'Parallel Strands', was issued by WildGoose in 2005. Their repertoire is based mainly (though not exclusively) on songs from the Baring-Gould collection. They married in 2006. This is their first visit to Swan Folk. 

 4 October  - Dave Burland

Dave Burland has retired twice in his life. In 1968 he left the Police Force to pursue a career in folk music, as a singer and guitar player. This particular period lasted until 1998 approx., when he took a proper job in which he had to wear proper trousers and, on occasions, a suit and tie.

During the aforementioned period of thirty years, he visited quite a few countries, made quite a few solo records, quite a few of which are no longer available, played quite a lot of clubs and concerts and festivals, and made session appearances on quite a few other persons' records including Kate Rusby, Nic Jones, Richard Thompson, Mike Harding, Tony Rose, Bob Pegg and quite a few others.

The period of 1998 to 2007 has been taken up by work with the very occasional engagement. However, in July 2007 all this changed when he retired for the second time. Hopefully, quite a few people will see this increased availability as quite a good thing. He is known to be quite looking forward to performing and seeing friends, some quite old and some quite new, and demonstrating his own controlled dynamism. 

18 October - Bill Whaley and Dave Fletcher

Words do not do them justice; their sound, their presentation, their obvious love of the songs and the pure joy of singing them is the very bedrock of our folk tradition. Their soft wry humour and complete lack of ego, coupled with oustanding musicianship, makes them an act never to be missed.
’A truly magnificent evening.’ ....Chichester Folk Club

‘Few people look more comfortable in front of an audience than Bill & Dave. Their natural empathy, musical savvy and a total absence of ego is a refreshing flashback to why I was drawn to folk music in the first instance.’ ....Clive Pownceby, Bothy Folksong Club, Southport 

We are happy to have them back at Swan Folk 

1 November - Ruth Price and Sadie Greenwood

'Ruth and Sadie were brought up in Dewsbury West Yorkshire and have both been heavily influenced by traditional song from a very early age. They sing mainly unaccompanied songs from a wide repertoire, which includes: songs from their family tradition and West Yorkshire; songs which they have learned from the family's associations with North America (Ruth was born in Canada); and some contemporary stuff. Ruth provides the occasional concertina accompaniment.
Over a number of years Ruth and Sadie have attended most of the folk festivals in England. They are both heavily involved with morris dancing, and have sung in pubs and folk clubs whilst at festivals. For the past few years their spine tingling sibling harmonies have become increasingly in demand at folk clubs, and festivals.
Their Father was Bill Price from Dewsbury who was very popular in the folk scene in the 1970's and they sing a number of his songs, some of which their Mum, Wendy wrote the tunes for.
Ruth and Sadie's voices and harmonies are exemplary; they are superb exponents of quality song, and an opportunity to hear them should not be missed.'

29 November - Bob Fox

It’s difficult to write a short biography about Bob. He’s done so much - working with Tom McConville in the mid 70’s;  working with Stu Luckley;  working with Benny Graham, plus being voted best folk singer in 2003 and 2004. He has various international appearances and lots of festivals  to his credit, also numerous cd’s.  A great singer, and popular performer - we look forward to welcoming him solo back to Swan Folk. 

13 December - An Appalachian Christmas

With Linda Hardcastle & Helen Hockenhull (Gracenotes), Alan Rose, Mike Hockenhull & Nigel Schofield - this will be something different to go with the mince pies.