Alex Gallacher

Our Song of the Day comes from outsider folk mystic Lee Baggett with Zipper Ride, a blissful meditation that leaves me smiling every time I hear it…taken from his new album ‘Echo Me On’, released this month on Perpetual Doom.

Listen to our latest Folk Show featuring Eliza Carthy & Jon Boden, Nick Hart & Tom Moore, Bernard Wrigley, Peter Bellamy, Angharad Jenkins and Patrick Rimes, Alasdair Roberts, Steeleye Span, Fay Hield, The Left Outsides, The Owl Service, Norma Waterson and more.

Emma Tricca has released a new digital single, Rain & Tears, a song by Aphrodite’s Child – the progressive Greek rock and pop band founded in 1967 that included Demis Roussos and Vangelis, who died last year.

The poet, writer, musician, activist and self-proclaimed ‘Rasta Folkie’ Benjamin Zephaniah has died at the age of 65 after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

We look back at some of our most popular Mixtapes – this features Mountain Man, Pharis and Jason Romero, Bob Dylan, Tom Rosenthal, Johnny Flynn, Valerie June, Michael Kiwanuka, Joni Mitchell, The Staves, Aisha Burns, Karima Walker, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Aldous Harding, Gillian Welch & more.

Sam Lee announces his new album songdreaming and a supporting UK-wide tour. Watch his new video for the album single Bushes and Briars – an invitation to consider what appreciation in the age of extinction can feel like.

Folklore and superstition surrounding birds inspire the latest single from Simon Jones – I Thought I Saw A Bird. “…For me, even though my logical mind says superstitions are not rooted in factual truths, there is an equal part that asks, ‘What if?’”

A campaign is underway to save the Royal Hotel in Dungworth from property developers – a local pub also home to a Folk Club and rich Carolling Tradition. Jon Boden, who set up the folk club there with Fay Hield, has made a personal plea.

Bellowhead founders and frontmen Spiers and Boden have announced a Spring Tour for 2024, something any folkie should find impossible to resist. They reunited in 2021 for Fallow Ground, “a genuinely warm-hearted, exuberant, and life-affirming album”.

The Radio Ballad ‘Singing The Fishing’, a gripping and enchanting tale of the East Coast Herring Fishing Industry, is to be brought to life in a new stage production. Read about the Radio Ballads, including extracts from our interview with Peggy Seeger and more.

This was a very popular Mixtape from 2017 featuring Jack Rutter, Georgia Lewis, Cormac Begley, Dempsey Broughton, John Smith, Lal & Mike Waterson, Ye Vagabonds, Fay Hield, Hanna Rarity, Rosie Hood, Ensemble Ériu and more.

We look back at some of our most popular Mixtapes – this Psych-folk special featured Pentangle, Heron, Tony Caro and John, Trees, Trembling Bells, Trappist Afterland, Sproatly Smith, Espers, Meg Baird, Linda Perhacs, Mick Softley, Mata Hari and more.