Traditional Folk Music and Song

Ahead of Sidmouth, we look at the history of Blowzabella who began life in 1978 as an energetic stilt walking dance band in bizarre costumes – they’ve played everywhere, including Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage and have influenced bands who experiment with the boundaries of folk music.

In 1971, Granada TV decided to make a special 30-minute concert on Ainsdale beach featuring Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Watch the entire set – 30 minutes of excellent classic folk-rock.

In a new series of posts looking at Folk and Traditional Music over the ages, we head back to 1951 for The first Edinburgh People’s Festival Ceilidh – the big bang of the Scottish folk revival; presided over by Hamish Henderson and recorded by Alan Lomax.

In 2019, Fran Foote and her mother Belinda Kempster, released an album featuring English folk songs, one of which was “Knife in the Window” which Fran learned from her great uncle Ernie Austin who also recorded an album for Topic Records in 1974.

A brief look at the hare in folklore and folk song. From superstitions and omens, to witches and shapeshifting…and their other names: the skidaddler, the nibbler, the slabber, the starer, the wood-cat, the purblind, the furze cat, the skulker, the bleary-eyed, the wall-eyed, the glance-aside and hedge-springer.