Folk Music Retreat with Laurel Swift
April 8th – 10th 2016
Thurlby, Lincolnshire
Just a few places left on this amazingly good workshop with fiddler/composer/dancer Laurel Swift. Fabulous teaching, playing and walking (and food!) in an unspoilt Lincolnshire village – the kind of weekend where you play your socks off and go home feeling as though you’ve had a week’s holiday.
Don’t forget your walking shoes as well as your instrument/s!
Full details and booking on Laurel’s website
Filed under English folk/modern, English folk/traditional
Fiddler Emma Reid’s composition Great Uncle Henry, played with Rob Harbron’s Waiting For Rain in a set of memorable tunes from the duo’s subtle, engaging album Flock & Fly.
But first…
Gig Alert!
Rob Harbron & Emma Reid play London’s Green Note
Monday 4 April
Details and booking here.
Rob Harbron (concertina), Emma Reid (viola)
You can hear and buy Flock & Fly on Bandcamp here, or by clicking on the player links above.
Emma Reid: website
Sometimes you meet a tune you know is just never going to let go. Acclaimed hurdy-gurdy player Nigel Eaton plays his tune ‘Lyvet’.
A wonderful tune to play against a drone string to catch those gurdy tones.
Nigel Eaton (hurdy-gurdy)
In G minor
(https://soundcloud.com/nigeleaton/lyvet)
In F minor – on a hurdy-gurdy made by his father, master hurdy-gurdy maker Chris Eaton
(‘Lyvet’ YouTube video, 1:15. Posted by Nigel Eaton, 27 Feb 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUXJEOVHcb4)
Nigel Eaton: Soundcloud, YouTube, website
Chris Eaton, hurdy-gurdy maker
Filed under English folk/modern, Uncategorized
SUNDAY 6 MARCH 2016, 21:00 GMT
Live from The Convent, near Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Tune in live and watch in real time on Sunday night, or you can watch as many times as you like in the following week.
£7.50 to stream the entire gig into your living room in glorious HD.
Details and booking here.
Leveret are Andy Cutting, Rob Harbron and Sam Sweeney.
This gig is the last in their current tour launching their second album In The Round.
Check out their music on earlier Fiddletails posts Whitefriar’s Hornpipe, Jenny Pluck Pears, Purlongs and The Rising Sun
‘We’re very excited to be playing at this amazing venue and we hope that people will tune in all over the world. Please help us spread the word about it and get in touch to let us know you’re watching it’
Leveret are on Facebook and Twitter (@LeveretBand)
Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized
The melody from a Dutch/Flemish traditional children’s song about a little boy who creates havoc pretending to be a knight.
Sometimes found in English morris dancing, the tune is played here live by wondrously funky dance band Blowzabella, first up in a set in Am, then transposing to Bm to morph into second tune Go Mauve (at 1:45).
(Image: Manet, Boy with a Sword*)
Blowzabella
Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion), Jo Freya (vocals, saxophone, clarinet), Paul James (bagpipes, saxophones), Gregory Jolivet (hurdy-gurdy), Dave Shepherd (violin), Barn Stradling (bass guitar), Jon Swayne (bagpipes, saxophones)
(From Blowzabella’s 2010 live album Dance.)
See Blowzabella: website Facebook for 2016 upcoming gigs, band news and recordings
*Metropolitan Museum, New York. Image courtesy of Simon Abrahams and EPPH
Folk Retreat with Laurel Swift
8-10 April, Thurlby, Lincolnshire
Just a few places left on this wonderful multi-instrumental folk weekend. Inspiring classes, home-cooked food, informal sessions and country walks in the Fens. And don’t forget your walking shoes/boots!
Details and booking here (book by 14 February for reduced rate!)
For music by Laurel, see her website, 
or use the Fiddletails Search (above right)
On Candlemass Day, a tune to drive winter away – a shining waltz from Leveret‘s newly-released second CD, In The Round. The cover notes tell us the tune was originally published by Daniel Wright in 1715, in An Extraordinary Collection of Pleasant & Merry Humours (etc.).
(See below for where to buy In The Round, and booking details on the UK launch tour)
Leveret
Andy Cutting (diatonic melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)
(‘Leveret – The Rising Sun’ YouTube video, 3.58. Posted by Leveret, 17 Dec 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36U2v05nk4)
Leveret introduce ‘In The Round’
The band talk about the making of the CD, their material, and playing together.
(‘Leveret Introduce “In The Round”‘ YouTube video, 4.47. Posted by Leveret, 26 Jan 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhLJ4pZe4IU)
(Recorded live at The Convent)
CD available from Leveret website here
‘IN THE ROUND’ UK LAUNCH TOUR starts 25 February. Details here (scroll down for dates)
Leveret: website Soundcloud Facebook Twitter
Rob Harbron: website
Sam Sweeney: website
Andy Cutting: website
(Social media: see websites for links)
Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized
Folk Music Retreat with Laurel Swift
BOOKING ABOUT TO CLOSE!
Laurel’s retreats always need a pair of walking shoes as well as your instrument/s, but this one needs a torch as well! Fabulous teaching and playing in wonderful locations – can’t recommend too highly.
15-17 January
Tanner’s Hatch, Surrey
Full details and booking on Laurel Swift website
Old Time Music Course with Ed Hicks
A rare opportunity to focus on this delightful music in depth. (Warning: you may just lose your musical heart!)
Wednesdays 7.00pm-8:30pm
13 January to 17 February
14 Bacon St, London E1 6LF
Full details and booking: Trad Academy website
Filed under American old-time, English folk/traditional
A beautiful light-and-shade waltz composed by English fiddler, bass-player and violist Laurel Swift, also widely known as a dancer, choreographer, composer, and inspirational teacher of all things musical. Laurel is playing here with duo partner, fiddler, melodeon-player and dancer Ben Moss (you may remember the tune from a May 2015 Fiddletails post which focused on the second tune in the set, Whitefrairs’ Hornpipe.)
Ben Moss & Laurel Swift
Filmed at Sidmouth Folk Week 2014.
(‘Ben Moss & Laurel Swift – Waltz Set’ YouTube video, 3:48. Posted by Laurel Swift, 12 Dec 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNSsjxrLv0M)
Laurel Swift (fiddle)
Solo teaching video made for Laurel’s Ealing Folk Band class (a treasure-trove of mainly English tunes and their dots).
(‘first false path’ YouTube video, 1.15. Posted by ealingsessions, 1 May 2012. https://youtu.be/KBG4RDja8Zk)
GIG ALERT!
Ben Moss & Laurel Swift play Walthamstow Folk Club, London, Sunday 25 October. Details and tickets here. (Highly recommended – they played and sang up a storm at their Green Note gig back in January 2015!)
More information on their website, and on Facebook, and Twitter (@FolkieBen, @Laurel_Swift). Oxford Folk Weekend has an interesting biography of the duo linked to a future gig in April 2016.
Current EP available from Ben & Laurel’s website, where you can listen to the great (free!) track No Money.
Purlongs is an intriguingly crooked tune from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651), and the roots of its inscrutable title are much debated. (Andy Cutting’s definition: ‘Any distance travelled by a cat.’)
However, the word appears to be a Middle English variation of ‘purloin’ – to steal, in a stealthy manner:
Purlong: Middle English purloinen, to remove, from Anglo-Norman purloigner. Noun: purloiner. (Via thefreedictionary.com)
And there you have it. Purlongs. Thieves/robbers. Case closed?
(Perhaps not. Googling purlongs also gave me furlongs/corruption of, and instructions for installing purlins when putting up a roof.)
Cut to the chase! Here are two wonderful bands – Leveret and Boldwood – playing the lovely Purlongs.
Leveret*
Andy Cutting (melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)
Purlongs played second in a set with Whitefriars Hornpipe, which was the tune for 28 May (Purlongs: 2:50). Mr Cutting half visible but entirely audible.
(‘Leveret – Whitefriars & Purlongs Live in Dursley Town Hall’ YouTube video, 5:41. Posted by Sam Sweeney, 12 Jul 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwCdsI6Qrx4)
The set is on Leveret’s 2015 CD New Anything, available from their website.
*GIG ALERT!
Leveret kick off their UK tour at Cecil Sharp House, London. THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER
Boldwood
Becky Price (piano accordion), Matthew Coatsworth, Kate Moran, Daniel Wolverson (fiddles)
Played second in a set with Fete de Village (Purlongs: 2:10) in a live performance at The Queen’s College Chapel, Oxford, 1st June 2013, featured on the unpublished CD Mudlarking**.
For news of gigs and recordings, see Boldwood’s website and their lively Facebook page.
**For previously-featured tunes from Mudlarking, see also Jackson’s Shaving Brush (June 2015) and The Miller of Perth (Aug 2015).
Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized
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