DMP and national promoters Kilimanjaro have partnered to bring together the third London Folk & Roots Festival, which will run from 27th October to 26th November 2016 across various London venues, including the Union Chapel, Bush Hall and The Shepherds Bush Empire.
Acts already confirmed include Newton Faulkner, former Bellowhead star Jon Boden, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, Sarah Jarosz, Tony Joe White, Eliza Carthy, Brandi Carlile and Maz O’Connor, amongst others.
David Messer for DMP said: “Now in its third year, the London Folk & Roots Festival is fast becoming an established part of London’s music calendar. It continues to grow in size, with an eclectic mix of UK and international artists. In addition to the bigger names on the bill, our new partners EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society) have helped bring in many new artists, providing them with the platform to play in front of larger audiences.”
Steve Tilley for Kilimanjaro said, “Kilimanjaro is delighted to be involved with the London Folk and Roots Festival again. All music could arguably be traced back to folk music in whatever country you look at it. Across the pond, they call folk music country, and outside of the westernised nations, they call it world music. So that’s the point of London’s Folk and Roots Festival; be you a Northumbrian pipes player, an acoustic singer-songwriter, an Americana/country legend, a Balkan balalaika player or a Malian musician, we will welcome you to the capital. We want to celebrate stunning artists and groups united by a love of acoustic and electric instruments, traditional indigenous melodic arrangements and great songs. Enjoy!’’
Spotify Playlist: The London Folk & Roots Festival
The London Folk & Roots Festival Dates:
Thu 27 Oct: Breabach – Rich Mix
Mon 31 Oct: Tony Joe White + Jack Broadbent – Union Chapel
Tue 01 Nov: Brandi Carlile + special guests – Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Tue 01 Nov: Emerging Talent Night with Emily Mae Winters, Cassie & Maggie, Dietrich Straus & Jack Harris – The Green Note
Wed 02 Nov: Jim Causley Trio – Cecil Sharp House
Wed 02 Nov: Tall Heights + Guests – The Slaughtered lamb
Wed 02 Nov: Rachel Sermani + The Lake Poets – St Pancras Old Church
Thu 03 Nov: Newton Faulkner + Tall Heights – Union Chapel
Thu 03 Nov: Michael Messer’s Mitra – Bush Hall
Thu 03 Nov: Songs for London – Cecil Sharp House
Sat 05 Nov: Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band + Colm Mac Con Iomaire – Islington Assembly Hall
Mon 07 Nov: Colm Mac Con Iomaire – The Forge
Tue 08 Nov: Emerging Talent Night with Brooke Sharkey, Monticule + TBC – The Green Note
Wed 09 Nov: Oyster Band – Cecil Sharp House
Wed 09 Nov: Maz O’Connor + Kizzy Crawford – Bush Hall (18yrs + only)
Wed 09 Nov: Michael McGoldrick – King’s Place
Wed 09 Nov: Wallis Bird – The Forge
Fri 10 Nov: Sara Watkins – Bush Hall
Thu 10 Nov: Oysters 3 – Cecil Sharp House
Fri 11 Nov: Jon Boden + Blair Dunlop – Union Chapel
Fri 11 Nov: Mick Flannery + Dermott Kennedy – St Stephens Church
Tue 15 Nov: Sarah Jarosz + Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage + Michael Baker – Union Chapel
Wed 16 Nov: Calan – Cecil Sharp House
Sat 26 Nov: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – The London Palladium
Tickets are on sale now, available from: londonfolkandrootsfestival.seetickets.com
The London Folk & Roots Festival Programme
Thursday 27 October – Rich Mix
BREABACH
Voted ‘Best Live Act 2013’ & ’Best Folk Band 2012‘ at the Scots Trad Music Awards and twice nominated ‘Best Band’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards; Scottish five-piece Breabach deliver a thrilling and unique brand of contemporary folk music that has earned them international recognition on the world and roots music scene as one of the UK’s most dynamic and exciting bands.
Monday 31st October – Union Chapel
TONY JOE WHITE
“His swamp rock sound is a mix of Delta blues, Cajun, country and, of course, rock ‘n’ roll.” – NPR
Weekend Edition“…White remains an unsung hero of American music, a fairly well-kept secret…” – The Bluegrass Situation
“…Tony Joe White is nothing short of a national musical treasure.” – Amazon
“With a deep, come-hither voice” (Mother Jones) and an “ability to turn that throbbing, thumping uh-uhh hazy guitar beat” (PopMatters), the “King of Swamp Rock” Tony Joe White will release his 19th studio album, Rain Crow, on May 27 (Yep Roc Records).
Tuesday 1st, November – Shepherd’s Bush Empire
BRANDI CARLILE PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
Brandi Carlile, a critically acclaimed Seattle Americana singer, is returning to London on Tuesday, November 1st for a headline performance at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Her 2015 album, The Firewatcher’s Daughter, has become her highest charting album to date and earned her first-ever GRAMMY® nomination for ‘Best Americana Album.’ In recent months, Brandi has embarked upon arena dates with The Avett Brothers, including NYC’s Madison Square Garden, and a co-headlining summer run with Americana folk legends and ATO labelmates Old Crow Medicine Show. Her return to Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Tuesday, November 1 marks her first trip back to the UK since selling out two shows at Union Chapel in February 2015. Carlile has sold out her last 4 London performances.
“Carlile is a perfect example of what live music should be – she’s not afraid to expose her voice in its rawest, most vulnerable form, and her band members weren’t afraid to feed off the audience, giving a first-time spark to each song.” – The Upcoming UK
“[Brandi] and the twins focused on the elemental stuff … the fears and pleasures that occupy, as one song here says, blood, muscle, skin, and bone. What they happened upon is glorious. It unlocks the true meaning of heartfelt.” – NPR
Wednesday, November 2nd – Cecil Sharp House
JIM CAUSLEY TRIO
Jim Causley celebrates over a decade as an acclaimed solo artist and performer with a brand new studio album Forgotten Kingdom, released by Hands On Music on February 17th, 2016, and a supporting tour. The album is his first album of entirely self-penned material. His first three albums all largely comprised traditional songs and his fourth, Cyprus Well, drew on poems written by Jim’s late relative Charles Causley and set to music by Jim. He will be joined by the renowned Devon fiddle duo of Nick Wyke & Becki Driscoll to form the Jim Causley Trio.
Wednesday, 2nd November – – The Slaughtered Lamb
TALL HEIGHTS + Guests
It’s been half a decade since Tall Heights kicked off their career in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, busking for more than 100 days to help fund their very first EP. Paul Wright would play the cello, Tim Harrington would strum the acoustic guitar, and both bandmates would sing, their voices cutting through the noise of shoppers and tourists.
New album ‘Holding On, Holding Out’ is a call to be more present and conscious, especially when things we all hold dear – family, love, our planet – are at stake. At its core, though, Holding On, Holding Out is a blast of exploration and electricity from a group that previously did some of its best work unplugged. It’s progressive and propulsive, shining a light not only on where Tall Heights have been before, but where they’re going.
Wednesday, 2nd November – St Pancras Old Church
RACHEL SERMANI + THE LAKE POETS
The music of Folk-Noir Balladeer, Rachel Sermanni, has the flesh of Folk but, if you were to cut the skin, you’d find it pumped with contemporary, genre blended blood. In all that she creates, it seems, there remains a preservation of the pure and mystical, symbolic in that beam of fragmented light that shone, 24 sun-spun years ago.
Thursday, 3rd November – Union Chapel
NEWTON FAULKNER
Big, beat-conscious and astonishingly diverse are not the adjectives that might have sprung immediately to mind with regard to Newton Faulkner in the past.
He was the singer-songwriter once tagged ‘the British Jack Johnson’ and tossed in alongside sensitive, strumming troubadours in the tradition of Jackson Browne and James Taylor. He was the guy with the dreadlocks he had been cultivating since the age of 15, the one who flayed the hell out of an acoustic guitar whenever he played live.
Thursday, 3rd November – Bush Hall
MICHAEL MESSER’S MITRA
Mitra is a unique musical trio and a true musical friendship. A unique fusion of blues slide guitar, Hindustani classical guitar and tabla rhythms. Michael Messer’s Mitra is a trio comprising British blues innovator and slide guitarist, Michael Messer, Hindustani slide guitar maestro from Mumbai India, Manish Pingle, and London-based tabla player, Gurdain Rayatt.
Michael Messer’s Mitra are: Michael Messer – vocals, slide and lap steel guitar, Manish Pingle – Indian slide guitar (Mohan veena), Gurdain Rayatt – table.
Thursday, November 3rd – Cecil Sharp House
SONGS FOR LONDON
Performed by a stellar group of London-based folk artists including Stick in the Wheel, Sam Carter, Lisa Knapp and Jack Harris, Songs for London marks the 150th anniversary of English Heritage’s Blue Plaque. We celebrate those folk collectors memorialized with Blue Plaques, Cecil Sharp, and Percy Grainger, and the enormous contribution that musicians and composers have made to the life and culture of London. This series of concerts is also the campaign launch to secure more Blue Plaques particularly for those from the folk and jazz genres. Promoted EFDSS as part of the London Folk and Roots Festival.
Saturday, 5th November – Islington Assembly Hall
ELIZA CARTHY & THE WAYWARD BAND
+ COLM MAC CON IOMAIRE
The Wayward band is bursting with some of the finest players in recent times, including members of Bellowhead, Mawkin, Blowzabella, Edward II, Emily Portman Trio, Peatbog Fairies, Dreams of Tall Buildings & Tyde. Featuring Eliza Carthy, Sam Sweeney, David Delarre, Barn Stradling, Saul Rose, Beth Porter, Lucy Farrell, Willy Molleson, Andrew Waite, Laurence Hunt, Nick Malcolm, Adrien “Yen-Yen” Toulouse
Monday, 7th November – The Forge (Camden)
COLM MAC CON IOMAIRE
In a crowded field of outstanding Irish fiddle players and interpreters of traditional music, Colm Mac Con Iomaire is unique. His voice is unmistakably his own, and his music bears distinctive creative hallmarks which have as much to do with his personality and character as with his impressive technical mastery, musical authority and exquisitely expressive playing.
Wednesday, 9th November – Cecil Sharp House
OYSTER BAND
Oyster Band hit the road in support of new ‘Best-of’ release THIS HOUSE WILL STAND. When the Oyster writing team of Jones/Prosser/Telfer came up with a song last year called “I Built This House,” a friend said the title sounded like somebody’s life story…..and an idea was born. On the crest of an almost 40-year international career, and with their distinctive mix of crafted lyrics, big tunes and deep experience of British traditional music still evolving, the time was right for a fresh overview. A double CD, THIS HOUSE WILL STAND: the best of Oysterband 1998-2015 comprises 15 classics chosen by the band from their last six studio albums (including Ragged Kingdom, their multi-award-winning collaboration with June Tabor) and 14 unreleased tracks, rare B-sides and intriguing “alt” versions. 6 of the 29 tracks are traditional.
Wednesday, November 9th – Bush Hall (Entry Requirements: 18+)
MAZ O’Connor + KIZZY CRAWFORD
Maz O’Connor is one of the most exciting young voices in British folk and is quickly establishing herself as a bold and compelling songwriter. Accompanying her uniquely pure voice with guitar, tenor guitar, piano and, occasionally, shruti box, O’Connor sings both reworked traditional folk songs and her own thoughtful compositions. In 2013 O’Connor was selected for a creative fellowship with the English Folk Dance and Song Society at London’s Cecil Sharp House, funded by the BBC Performing Arts Fund, and in 2015 was nominated for the Horizon Award at The BBC Folk Awards.
Wednesday, November 9th – Kings Place ( Kings Cross)
MICHAEL MCGOLDRICK
Born in Manchester to Irish parents, Michael McGoldrick was encouraged by the thriving traditional Irish music scene in the city and made a name for himself while still at school. He became the first piper/flautist to win the acclaimed BBC Radio Two Young Tradition Award.
In 1998, Mike was invited to join Scottish folk-legends Capercaillie, which Mojo magazine described as ‘a folk marriage made in heaven’. He was later named Musician of the Year at the 2006 BBC Folk Awards and has recorded four solo albums.
Mike has gone on to record with the likes of Bob Dylan and is a regular in Mark Knopfler’s band. By fusing traditional music with trance or jazz, Mike is already regarded as one of the greatest flute players of all time. You too will become hooked to the crossover of traditional Irish music to modern day sound!
‘One of the greatest flute players in the world’ BBC Music
‘Gorgeous tunes, razor-sharp grooves, and sublime playing’ Sunday Herald
Wednesday, 9th November – The Forge (Camden)
WALLIS BIRD
When Wallis Bird hit a roadblock during the writing of her new album, ‘Home,’ she did the only thing she could think of. “I figured a 12-hour free concert would fix all the issues I had”, she chuckles. Bird stepped onto the stage of Berlin’s Auster Club at 1.30pm one cold January afternoon and stayed there until the early hours of the morning. Afterwards, she even played two encores. “It was terrifying, demanding, but ultimately beautiful….I was okay after that; I learned a lot!”
Friday, 10th November – Bush Hall
SARA WATKINS
Acclaimed songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sara Watkins’ new album, Young In All The Wrong Ways, out July 1 on New West Records, sees her boldly stepping in to the role of frontwoman following the collaborative groups of Watkins Family Hour and the Platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning Nickel Creek, which she first formed with her brother Sean Watkins and Chris Thile when she was just eight years old. Easily her most cohesive and fully realized album of her solo career, it is also her most powerful, personal and revealing; she wrote or co-wrote each of the ten songs – a first for her. Watkins calls the new collection “a breakup album with myself…” and writing and recording these ten intensely soul-baring songs was a means for her to process and mark the last couple years, which have been transformative. These songs contain some of the heaviest moments of her career, with eruptions of thrumming B3 organ and jagged electric guitar. But it’s also quiet, vulnerable, tenderhearted.
Thursday, 10th November – Cecil Sharp House
OYSTERS 3
When the Oyster writing team of Jones/Prosser/Telfer came up with a song last year called “I Built This House,” a friend said the title sounded like somebody’s life story…..and an idea was born. On the crest of an almost 40-year international career, and with their distinctive mix of crafted lyrics, big tunes and deep experience of British traditional music still evolving, the time was right for a fresh overview. A double CD, THIS HOUSE WILL STAND: the best of Oysterband 1998-2015 comprises 15 classics chosen by the band from their last six studio albums (including Ragged Kingdom, their multi-award-winning collaboration with June Tabor) and 14 unreleased tracks, rare B-sides and intriguing “alt” versions. 6 of the 29 tracks are traditional.
Friday, 11th November – Union Chapel
JON BODEN
Over the course of his career, Jon Boden has become one of the outstanding performers of traditional music of his generation. In one capacity or another, he has won eleven BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Though widely respected for his role as a highly accomplished interpreter of traditional song, Jon Boden has a musical repertoire which extends far beyond the boundaries of just one genre. Now that the exuberant big band Bellowhead which Jon fronted has now come to a close, Jon has decided to explore a more simple, pared down sound.
Friday, 11th November – St Stephens Church
MICK FLANNERY + DERMOT KENNEDY
“In the end of the day and the heel of the hunt, you’re left with the songs. Everything else comes and goes – the shows and the tours and the applause and the acclaim, which goes with them, the prattle and the palaver which accompany an album release. Everything else fades out of view. Everything else doesn’t matter in the long run. But the songs remain. The songs you write on your own stick around. They’re going to be here for many years to come so they deserve to be treated with due care and utmost respect in the creation process”. Mick Flannery – 2016
Mick Flannery realised this a long time ago. He also realised that songwriting was the best part of this strange job of being a jobbing-gigging-talking-singing musician.
“Mick Flannery is a singing and songwriting force to be reckoned with” – Siobhán Long, Irish Times
“Mick is a songwriter of the first order … His voice is pained, gravelly, and powerful. Recorded or live, it carries through and stops you in your tracks.” – Urban Folk, New York
Tuesday, 15th November – Union Chapel
SARAH JAROSZ + HANNAH SANDERS & BEN SAVAGE + MICHAEL BARKER
“I really like that word,” Sarah Jarosz says of the title of Undercurrent, her fourth Sugar Hill album. “If you look up the definition, it’s ‘an underlying feeling or influence’ or ‘a flow of water moving below the surface.’ To me, that really encompasses the feeling behind this record.”
That evocative imagery is appropriate for Undercurrent, whose 11 original songs seem to reveal new lyrical depth and sonic nuance with every listen. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, a singularly expressive vocalist and a songwriter of rare insight, Sarah Jarosz has been described by The New York Times as “one of acoustic music’s most promising young talents: a singer-songwriter and mandolin and banjo prodigy with the taste and poise to strike that rare balance of commercial and critical success.”
Wednesday, 16th November – Cecil Sharp House
CALAN
Calan breathes fire into the old traditions with their infectious rhythms and high-voltage routines before melting into some of the most beautiful and haunting songs. Calan play fiddles, whistles, guitar and bagpipes and a traditional reed instrument from Wales called a pibgorn made from a wooden pipe and the horns of a bull. Great fun, a sense of humour and step dancing from a champion dancer makes for a great show.
Saturday, 26th November – The London Palladium
THE UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN
“The Gigasecond Tour” The world renowned all-singing, all-plucking superstars return with their toe-tapping music, hilarious banter, and sheer superlative entertainment. Last year they celebrated 30 Plucking Years of ukulele action, this year they will have been active for One Billion Seconds.See and hear for yourself why the appeal of the Ukes of GB (the original Ukulele Orchestra, the oldest and the best) and their hilarious, entertaining, witty shopping trolley dash through all genres of music has led to sold-out shows all over the world from the Royal Albert Hall to Sydney Opera House.
Photo Credit: David Angel