To celebrate the launch of the new A.L. Lloyd biography by Dave Arthur ‘Bert, The Life and Times of A.L. Lloyd‘ we will be featuring an in-depth interview with the author as well as examining the extraordinary life of Bert Lloyd: Folk singer and folk music collector, writer, painter, journalist, art critic, whalerman, sheep station roustabout, Marxist, and much more – the book itself was a huge undertaking as we will reveal and to help set the scene we’ll be looking at Dave’s background from his young bohemian Soho lifestyle to recording albums for Topic, Transatlantic and Leader. His background offers a great scene setting which contrasts well to Bert Lloyd’s life and why he made such an influence on the British folk scene.
In addtion we will be featuring a very special 35 minute audio interview / documentary: “Singing the century: the life and times of A. L. Lloyd” which was written and produced by Alex Bingham who has spent considerable time at Cecil Sharp House trawling through the sound archive of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Memorial library. It centres around an interview between Alan Franks (award-winning author, musician and Times journalist) and Dave Arthur which has some great sound clips throughout. A perfect introduction to anyone unfamilar with Bert Lloyd’s life, from his politics to his influence on the folk rock scene.
The audio feature will be broadcast next week (broadcast details to follow soon) which coincides with the book launch at Cecil Sharp House
Cecil Sarp House Book Launch: 31 May 2012:
This special event will feature music from Rattle on the Stovepipe (Dave Arthur, Pete Cooper and Dan Stewart), Martyn Wyndham Read, Iris Bishop, Frankie Armstrong, John Foreman, Hylda Sims and the City Ramblers, Eddie Armer, Pete Cooper and Sue Lee.
Date: 31st May 2012 (entry is free) Full details here
Bert, The Life and Times of A.L. Lloyd is published by Pluto Books