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Latest News

29th July

Finally settled I believe...

The new venue for the Manchester Cajun Session is The Bowling Green, Brookburn Rd, Chorlton, Manchester M21 9ES.  Starts at 9pm on the last Tuesday of the month, from 27 July 2010 onwards.

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Sept 8 Phil Rosenthal

Baldock & Letchworth Folk Club

Old White Horse, Baldock, SG7 5BS

http://www.americanmelody.com

Phil Rosenthal is a nationally renowned singer, songwriter, recording artist and record producer. For many years the lead singer and guitarist in the popular bluegrass group The Seldom Scene, he is also highly respected for his instrumental skills on banjo and mandolin.

Info:    01767 683583 Web:  http://www.madnanny.co.uk

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Smithsonian-Folkways is releasing a CD of Ola Belle Reed's singing performances, remastered and including previously unreleased material.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/

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The Wilders will be returning in late January for their own headline show at Glasgow's Celtic Connections Festival and will be able to add a string of dates in England immediately after, to meet demand.

The date is still to be confirmed but they are likely to be available to tour in England in the first third of February before they head over to Germany.

Anybody interested in booking them please contact Loudon Temple (details below). He is so confident of their popularity that he will be happy to discuss a reasonable basic guarantee v box office split. And he provides full pre-tour publicity package, targeting local/regional/national media (print and radio) and supplies full colour over-printed posters and flyers.

Have a look at his website and check them out in the Our Artistes section where you can hear sample tracks and see footage from two different TV appearances on BBC 2.

http://www.brookfield-knights.com

Tel: 01505 706346 Mob: 07831 878013

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22nd July

The Manchester Cajun session has moved again, probably to Jackson's Boat at Sale Water Park.

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Next session dates at the Union Hotel, Chapel Street, Penzance are 12th and 19th August. 

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CHARLIE PARR/BLACK TWIG PICKERS

12/9 Newcastle

13/9 Leeds

14/9 Manchester

15/9 Glasgow

16/9 Aviemore

17/9 available

18/9 Loch Lomond

19/9 Edinburgh

20/9 available**

**expecting to travel as far south as London if necessary on this day

BLACK TWIG PICKERS

21/9 available

22/9 Cardiff tbc

23/9 available

24/9 Coventry

25/9 Penryn

26/9 available

27/9 London

If you can help with any of the gaps please contact Lee Etherington by

Banjos and fiddles, boards and bones in hand, the Black Twig Pickers dove into a living tradition of old-time music that surrounds their homes in Southwest Virginia and never looked back. Both scholars of the regional sounds and advocates of an ecstatic and highly personal approach to the music, the Twigs hold down local dance and bar gigs, play all manner of celebrations and every so often, hit the road.

Charlie Parr is a folk and country blues musician who is routinely labeled “authentic” and “the real deal” by fans and critics alike. Charlie shows up with a lived-in rasp of a voice, National resonator and 12-string acoustic guitars, a banjo and a batch of his own songs and well-traveled numbers by Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton and other cohorts from another time.

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15th July

Hog Roast and music at The Merrie Harriers, Cowbeech, near Herstmonceux, East Sussex featuring The Old Faded Glory String Band on Sunday 18th July from noon to three.

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Gérard de Smaele reports that the documentary dvd "A Banjo Frolic" is available from: Weblink

It was made for his "Banjo!" exhibition at the MIM, Brussels in 2003-2004

The web link has descriptions in French and English but you need to understand French to work the 'Shopping Cart'.

Distributed in the US by Harmonia Mundi and Elderly Instruments. Note this is NTSC format but I believe most decent UK players/tvs can deal with that. Check before you indulge.

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Here's a new date for Tim Eriksen:

Tue, July 20 - The Betsey Trotwood,56 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3BL 8 p.m.

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Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 September

15th UK Sacred Harp Convention

Weedon Bec Village Hall, Northants., NN7 4QU

http://www.ukshapenote.org.uk/conventions/uk2010/wbhome.htm

info: 01865 865773

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American old time artists Tim Eriksen and Jeff Warner will be at Sidmouth Folk Week in August. Tim is a fine traditional musician who plays on the soundtrack of Cold Mountain. Jeff is a singer of American traditional songs.

Their appearances will be as follows:

Jeff Warner

Mon 2nd Aug    2.30 -4.15, Songs of Anne and Frank Warner. Manor Pavilion

Tue 3rd Aug    12.00 - 1.00 Sarah Grey's 70th birthday concert. With Tim Eriksen and Ben Paley. Ham Marquee

Tue 3rd Aug    4.30 - 5.45 Participating in a "family concert" . All Saints Church Hall

Tue 3rd Aug     8.00 - 11.00 Concert, with various good folkies. Bedford Hotel

Tim Eriksen

Mon 2ndAug    11.15 -12.45 Shape note singing workshop. Methodist Hall

Mon 2nd Aug    2.30 - 4.15 Guesting with Jefff Warner. Manor Pavilion

Tues 3rd Aug    12.00 - 1.00 With Jeff Warner. Ham Marquee

Also on the 3rd, Tim will be part of the Cordelia's Dad performance.

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8th July

The long-running weekly session in Bakewell will be moving to the Queen’s Arms from Thursday 8th July.  The Queen’s Arms is on the market square in the middle of town, opposite the co-op supermarket. The postal address is bridge street and the postcode is de45 1DS

Contact is Steve Wise by or tel:07986 903409

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The next session at the Union Hotel, Chapel Street, Penzance is Thursday, 15th July, 8.30pm. 

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Jan Bell (of The Maybelles) is playing a string of July dates alongside Americana Roots man Will Scott.

http://www.janbellmusic.com

Jul 14 The Green Note, London (opening for Ana Egge / Jack Harris) 

Jul 16 The Grey Horse , Kingston on Thames

Jul 17 What’s Cookin, Leytonstone, London

Jul 18 3:00P Leytonstone Festival Sunday Picnic, Leytonstone, London

Jul 23 St. Anne's Castle, Essex

Jul 25 The Bell, Bath

Jul 26 The Barge, Gillingham, Kent

Jul 27 The Bluebell Inn, Hempstead, Saffron Waldon

Jul 30 The Platform Tavern, Southampton

Aug 1  Americana Session, The Foundry, Brighton

Aug 3  12 Bar Club, London

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1st July

Cambridge Bluegrass and Old Time Session, 2nd or 3rd Wed of Month at Six Bells, Covent Garden, off Mill Rd, Cambridge.

Contact Julie Watson by . Next session July 8th.

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DECORATION DAY IN THE MOUNTAINS:

Traditions of Cemetery Decoration in the Southern Appalachians   

by Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010

(234 pp., 8.75" x 11.25", 33 color plates and 86 black-and-white photographs,

map, appendices, endnotes, bibliography, index)

$30 clothbound from the authors, plus $3 shipping if mailed –

http://www.alanjabbour.com/decoration_day_book.html

http://www.alanjabbour.com/shop.html

Decoration Day is a late spring or summer tradition that involves cleaning community cemeteries, decorating them with flowers, holding a religious service in the cemetery, and having dinner on the ground. These commemorations seem to predate the post-Civil War celebrations that ultimately gave us our national Memorial Day. Little has been written about this tradition, but it is still practiced widely throughout the Upland South, from North Carolina to the Ozarks and beyond.

Written by folklorist Alan Jabbour and illustrated with more than a hundred photographs taken by his wife, Karen Singer Jabbour, Decoration Day in the Mountains is an in-depth exploration of this little-known cultural tradition. Through interviews, first-hand narrative, photographs, and extensive field and library research, the authors illuminate the meanings behind the rituals. The book describes typical decoration events, surveys the folk cemeteries in which Decoration Day takes place, and explores the symbolic meaning and social significance of the custom in the region’s rural communities.

Decoration Day in the Mountains also shows how the tradition led to a grassroots movement to hold the federal government to its promises about cemeteries left behind when families were removed to make way for Fontana Dam and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Jabbours document this movement, which has had a significant impact on the political and cultural life of western North Carolina.

Abundantly illustrated and vividly written, Decoration Day in the Mountains presents a compelling account of a widespread and longstanding Southern cultural practice

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Mountaintop Heritage Days Festival: The Shiver Show

Sunday, June 27, 2010

1:00pm - 3:00pm

Ft. Ritchie, Maryland

The Shivers, Chance and Susette, with Casey Driscoll on fiddle and Brennen Ernst on banjo and guitar, with Bill Taylor on bass.

Chance and Susette brings Old Time Country Music and Bluegrass to the Heritage Stage

Two shows at 1:00 and 2:30

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Mike Seeger has a second life on the web, at the newly re-created site

http://www.mikeseeger.info

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