Cambridge Folk Festival has announced more names for their 2022 lineup (28 – 31 July 2022), including the Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes. There will also be an acoustic set from Billy Bragg, who, based on his latest album, The Million Things That Never Happened, seems to be getting better with age. Written during lockdown, it was his tenth studio album for the Cooking Vinyl label who described the release as the first pandemic blues album of our times.
The mighty award-winning Afro Celt Sound System will hopefully give a good reason for the Cambridge deck chairs to be swept aside in favour of some dancing. Band founder Simon Emmerson recently put together a guest mix for Folk Radio UK here that featured an unreleased track from the Afro Celts titled Hawk Owl. Their 2018 album Flight (reviewed here) made a huge impression on many, described by FRUK’s Neil McFadyen as an enthralling, wide-ranging album that brings new rewards with every listen. He adds: Afro Celt Sound System are a band that continue to seek out and explore new musical adventures, with utterly captivating results.
Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab make a timely appearance, having recently celebrated their 50th Anniversary, a journey from a house band in Dakar’s Medina in the late 1960s to Senegal’s leading group up until the late 70s. They then had a Phoenix moment when they made a remarkable return with a now-legendary concert at London’s Barbican in 2001 and an album co-produced by Youssou N’Dour.
The band owes their start to the entrepreneurial force that was Ibra Kassé, club owner, impresario and founder of the Star Band, whose residency at Dakar’s Club Miami in the late 60s made it a notoriously lively joint. Here, Kassé’s band lit up the night with music flavoured by rhythms from around the world, all flowing into Dakar – one of the great ports of west Africa – from America, Europe, and Cuba, as well as Senegal’s West African neighbours Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. This eclectic combination of rhythms and styles would all later feed into Baobab’s DNA. Read more here.
On tour across the UK from July, Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) will be stopping by, having recently released Life On Earth (18 Feb), her label debut for Nonesuch Records. The album was significant in that it marked a departure for the New Orleans-based Segarra. Its eleven new “nature punk” tracks on the theme of survival are music for a world in flux – songs about thriving, not just surviving, while disaster is happening. For their eighth full-length album, Segarra drew inspiration from The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and the author of Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown. Recorded during the pandemic, Life on Earth was produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver, Kevin Morby)…this is sure to be one of many highlights at this year’s festival.
Acoustic singer-songwriter from North Yorkshire Billie Marten has been making music since 15. She made her debut album Writing of Blues and Yellows arrived while still at school, and two years later, the revelatory follow-up Feeding Seahorses By Hand (2019) saw her unlearning everything she previously knew, while her latest album, Flora Fauna, acknowledged the need to tackle the growing toxic behaviours in society today.
A regular name on the Cambridge roster, Sam Lee (Multi-award-winning, inventive singer, folksong collector, conservationist and promoter of live events as founder/director of The Nest Collective) makes a return. In 2020 he released ‘Old Wow+’, a reissue and revisit of his 2020 album featuring six bonus tracks. FRUKs David Weir described the album as “his quintessential act of resistance” and “his most direct, urgent and moving record to date.”
Another band that will challenge the deck chair brigade is Scotland’s supergroup Elephant Sessions, their fusion of Scottish traditional music and dance floor vibes are an irresistible invitation to get up on your feet and let some steam off.
Another welcome Scottish collective and also one of Glasgow’s finest indie acts are Admiral Fallow. They recently released their long-awaited album The Idea Of You, which was their first in six years, on Chemikal Underground. The album’s nine songs were couched in warmth, empathy and contentment, a response to its makers having navigated personal and professional challenges to emerge with their identity – both as a group and as individuals – intact. The Idea Of You traverses Philly soul, sophisticated pop and guitar-driven rock, delivering humbly anthemic choruses by the barrowload. Alongside some of the names already mentioned above, this may well be one of the more diverse offerings Cambridge has made in a while.
Also appearing are big-voiced, Bristol-based singer, songwriter and bandleader Elles Bailey, dubbed the “hardest-working woman in blues, rock and roots music”. Elles has won awards in both blues and Americana music and powered her way to the forefront of the British roots music scene.
Celebrating their 10th year of performing together, much loved Yorkshire folk duo O’Hooley And Tidow are as likely to place a smile on your face as they are to find you holding back tears…I speak with some experience here. Their live performances are always memorable and totally deserve the description by The Independent newspaper as “defiant, robust, northern, poetical, political folk music for the times we live in.”
The BBC Folk Award winners and power-folk-trio The Trials Of Cato have been through some changes of late, which finds Polly Bolton joining the band. Last year they treated us to a lively rendition of ‘Bedlam Boys’ taken from their forthcoming new album Gog Magog which coincidentally is named both after the mythical giant of Arthurian legend and the Cambridgeshire hilltop, where the new album was birthed over lockdown.
Oklahoman singer-songwriter Samantha Crain delivered her most personal album to date with A Small Death (2021). Following the release of her last album in 2017, she was in a series of auto accidents where she lost the use of her hands. She was left considering the possibility she would never be able to hold a guitar again, let alone actually play it. Slowly regaining the use of her hands, she began putting together this new collection of songs.FRUK’s Bob Fish said, “If there is a secret to Samantha Crain’s A Small Death it comes from her ability to render the moments of terror after discovering her inability to use her hands and transform them into visions of a future rebuilt and reborn.” It’s great to see her return to the stage, where she’ll share emotive tracks from her catalogue.
Anglo-Scottish quintet The Magpie Arc featuring Nancy Kerr, Martin Simpson and Adam Holmes alongside multi-instrumentalist and producer Tom A. Wright and bassist Alex Hunter are sure to liven up the festival. As Alex Hunter said, “We’re not trying to reinvent the folk-rock “wheel”, we’re just sticking our own brand of tyres on it!!” This one you don’t want to miss.
If you want a great sing-along, then look no further than living Folk legends The Copper Family of Rottingdean, who have been singing their songs for generations, lovingly preserving them for the future.
What a great mix of music. Add to this the artists already announced – Passenger – Seasick Steve – St. Paul and the Broken Bones – Clannad – Suzanne Vega – Spell Songs – This Is The Kit – Show Of Hands – Julie Fowlis – Spiers And Boden – Chico Trujillo – The Young’uns – Flook – Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram – The Mary Wallopers – The Spooky Men’s Chorale – Davina & The Vagabonds – The Breath – Beans on Toast – Dustbowl Revival – N’famady Kouyaté – Katherine Priddy – VRï – Tapestri – The Honest Poet – and you have the making of a great summer festival.
Cambridge Folk Festival takes place 28 – 31 July 2022 in the picturesque grounds of Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge. Early booking advisable. Purchase tickets from: https://www.cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival/tickets