Pilgrims’ Way, the award-nominated Manchester-based trio have released their first video, featuring one of the most airplayed tracks from their acclaimed debut album: The Handweaver and The Factory Maid. The trio of Lucy Wright, Tom Kitching and Edwin Beasant who also feature in the video have been nominated for the Horizon Award (Best Emerging Act) at the 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in February.
Filmed on the Ashton Canal, which runs between Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne, the musicians are seen on the ex-Ellesmere Port tar boat “Spey” in which Kitching and Beasant have shares. Stockport’s famous Lowry-inspiring viaduct, as seen on the Wayside Courtesies album cover, also features and the boat drifts past derelict mills. The film features Kitching on fiddle, Beasant on guitar and Wright on vocals and Jew’s harp.
The Pilgrims’ version of the traditional The Handweaver and the Factory Maid will also appear on the new 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards triple compilation album which features numbers by all nominees as well as the BBC Young Folk Award semi-finalists.
Described as “the most comprehensive collection of the current favourite, rising and, as yet, unsung stars of the folk world” it is released by Proper Music on February 6.
The BBC Folk Awards will be held at Manchester’s Lowry Theatre on February 8 and for the first time will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 and on BBC tv’s Red Button service.
The night before the awards Pilgrims’ Way head to the south coast to support June Tabor and Oysterband in the Britfolk Footprint show at Chichester’s famous Festival Theatre in Sussex. Tickets: (01243) 781312
An EP -Shining Gently All Around – released just before Christmas – offers a sneak preview of two tracks destined for their next album, due out later this year. With the upbeat Light Dragoon and Howden Town (aka The White Hare) they demonstrate their trademark brisk and buoyant treatments of English folk songs – feisty, feelgood arrangements full of verve and vigour.