07/02/2009: Folk Awards Special

Regular features were suspended for this special programme to mark the tenth annual BBC Folk Awards, which took place last Monday. Chris Wood and Jackie Oates were the big winners, taking home two trophies each, whilst previous winners Bellowhead, Eliza Carthy and Karine Polwart, with eight nominations between them, all missed out this year. Before announcing the winners I played a medley of songs from the four nominees in each category.

The show also included music from the two recipients of Lifetime Achievement Awards, Judy Collins and James Taylor. Last year's Lifetime Achievement winner, John Martyn, died last month and host Mike Harding began proceedings at The Brewery with a minute's applause in his memory. Bert Jansch and Ralph McTell later gave a tribute to the late Davy Graham, who died in December, duetting for a live performance of Graham's signature tune Angi, which was also featured on RaW Folk this week.

Music Played (award winners listed in bold, albums in brackets)

Lifetime Achievement: James Taylor - Not Fade Away (Covers)

Best Traditional Track medley
Chris Wood - Lady of York / Jackie Oates - The Lark in the Morning / Jim Moray - Lucy Wan / Bellowhead - Fakenham Fair

Horizon Award medley
The Shee - Chilly Winds / Jeana Leslie & Siobhan Miller - Edward / Jackie Oates - The Lark in the Morning / Bella Hardy - Alone, Jane?

Jackie Oates - The Lark in the Morning (The Violet Hour)

Musician of the Year medley
Tom McConville - Fair Pretty Maid / John McCusker - Jack Seward's / Martin Simpson - Duncan and Brady / Phil Beer - Blow the Man Down

Tom McConville - Pretty Fair Maid (Tommy on Song)

Best Duo medley
Bob Fox & Stu Luckley - The Bonnie Gateshead Lass / Chris While & Julie Matthews - Together Alone / Megson - Smoke of Home / Spiers & Boden - The Rain it Rains

Chris While & Julie Matthews - Together Alone (Together Alone)

Best Original Song medley
Jim Moray - All You Pretty Girls (written by Andy Partridge) / Chris Wood - Come Down Jehovah (written by Chris Wood) / Eliza Carthy - Mr Magnifico (written by Eliza Carthy and Ben Ivitsky) / Chris Wood - Cottager's Reply (written by Frank Mansell & Chris Wood)

Jim Moray - All You Pretty Girls (Low Culture)

Bert Jansch & Ralph McTell - Angi [live]

Best Live Act medley
Seth Lakeman - Haunt You [live] / The Demon Barbers - Good Old Days / Bellowhead - Haul Away [live] / Lau - Stewarts [live]

Album of the Year medley
Jim Moray for Low Culture - Leaving Australia / Karine Polwart for This Earthly Spell - Firethief / Chris Wood for Trespasser - Summerfield Avenue / Eliza Carthy for Dreams of Breathing Underwater - Follow the Dollar

Folk Singer of the Year medley
Julie Fowlis - Lon Dubh / Chris Wood - Come Down Jehovah / Karine Polwart - Dowie Dens of Yarrow / Eliza Carthy - Oranges and Seasalt

Chris Wood - Come Down Jehovah (Trespasser)

Best Group medley
Bellowhead - Fakenham Fair / Faustus - The Hostesses Daughter / Mawkin:Causley - George's Son / Lau - Banks of Marble

Lifetime Achievement: Judy Collins - Both Sides Now (Wildflowers)

A fairly hectic show but we managed to hear excerpts from every nominated artist, as well as full tracks from a selection of winners. As DJs are required to log all songs they play, this programme involved logging forty-four tracks in sixty minutes! The next show was late again, so we also heard Banks of Marble in full from Lau, winners of the Best Group award, as a bonus track.

To watch video from the evening (including several live performances) please visit the BBC's Folk Awards microsite and don't forget to tune in next Saturday for the return of regular features Folk On or Folk Off, Train Track and the Legend of Stuff - abnormal service will resume!

Reminder: Folk Awards Special tonight

Tonight's RaW Folk will feature news of from the tenth annual BBC Folk Awards, with music from all the nominees and a very special live performance from the evening. Tune into RaW on 1251am on campus or at radio.warwick.ac.uk/listen at 19:00 to hear an hour's highlights of the most important night in the folk calendar.

Predictions, or how I lost all credibility

Ahead of tonight's BBC Folk Awards in London - which, as far as I know have survived the unprecedented extreme weather event (snow) - it's prediction time! If you'd like to add your own, feel free to comment below.

Don't forget to tune into RaW Folk next Saturday from 19:00 for the results show.

My Dodgy Predictions:
Folk Singer of the Year - Chris Wood
Best Duo - Chris While & Julie Matthews
Best Group - Mawkin:Causley
Best Album - Low Culture (Jim Moray)
Best Original Song - Come Down Jehovah (Chris Wood)
Best Traditional Track - Lucy Wan (Jim Moray)
Horizon Award - Bella Hardy
Musician of the Year - Tom McConville
Best Live Act - Bellowhead

31/01/2009

This week RaW Folk explored the folk rock connections to the day the music died, fifty years ago on February 3rd. Had Buddy Holly lived it is tempting to wonder whether he would have contributed to the Sixties folk revival, having moved to Greenwich Village shortly before the plane crash that killed him at the age of 22, alongside Ritchie Valens (aged 17), JP Richardson (The Big Bopper, aged 28) and the pilot Roger Peterson.

The show also paid tribute to the late John Martyn, a terrific folk (and jazz) singer-songwriter and folk guitar virtuoso, who died on Thursday.

In addition the almost regular features Folk On or Folk Off, Train Track and Young Folkies graced the airwaves with customary gauche inelegance and I decided that Mykonos by Fleet Foxes is the most affecting track I've heard since Josh Pyke's Middle of the Hill.

Music Played
Artist - Song (Album)

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun (Rodrigo y Gabriela)
Ritchie Valens - La Bamba (Ritchie Valens)
Buddy Holly - Well... All Right (Very Best of)
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Sun Giant EP)
John Martyn - Glory Box (The Church With One Bell)

Train Track
Bob Dylan - It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Highway 61 Revisited)

John Martyn - Solid Air (Solid Air)
Cara Dillon - Spencer the Rover (Hill of Thieves)

Folk On or Folk Off
The Nightwatchman - One Man Revolution (One Man Revolution)

Young Folkies
Ryan Young - Catharsis, Humours of Tulla, Mittens Breakdown (BBC Folk Awards 2007)

Steeleye Span - Rave On (Spanning the Years)
Don McLean - American Pie (American Pie)

24/01/2009

Gifted an extra thirty minutes just a couple of hours before the show, I thought the time ripe for a look back at nine months of RaW Folk's contentious but convivial continuing item, Folk On or Folk Off. The hastily assembled result highlighted previously considered tracks from The Beautiful South, Tilly & the Wall, k.d. Lang, The Band, Martha Wainwright and Slow Club, as well as behind the scenes secrets and listener recollections.

Normal service resumed at 19:00, with last week's new feature "Train Spot" transformed to "Train Track" at a listener's suggestion, in a desperate effort to sound less geeky. Sir Bob's classic Theme Time Radio Minute on the big topic of mountains was given a second airing and among the musical peaks were tracks from RaW Folk debutants Dervish, Neil Young (solo) and Kathleen Edwards.

Music Played
Time Artist - Song (Album)

Dervish - Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves (Travelling Show)
Neil Young - Lookin' For a Leader (Living With War)
Old Crow Medicine Show - Union Maid (Big Iron World)

Train Track
Tom Waits - Downtown Train (Rain Dogs)

Emilie Autumn - O Mistress Mine
Byrds - All I Really Want to Do (Mr. Tambourine Man)

Theme Time Radio Minute (Classic) - Mountains
Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Fly Away Home (Men from Earth)

Folk On or Folk Off
KT Tunstall - Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (Eye to the Telescope)

Mawkin: Causley - Ye Mariners All (Cold Ruin EP)
Eliza Carthy - Worcester City (Anglicana)

Legend of Stuff
Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick - Death of Queen Jane (Straws in the Wind)

Whitley - Shot to the Stars (The Submarine)
Kathleen Edwards - Run (Asking for Flowers)

Early Start!

This week's show will kick off half an hour early with a Folk On / Folk Off special. Please tune in from 18:30 for more of your RaW Folk.

17/01/2009

Not one but two brand new features on Saturday's programme, for the first time since the first show when Folk On or Folk Off and the forgotten (not forgiven) Theme Time Radio Minute debuted to no great acclaim. Obviously such high standards cannot be maintained, so this time round we make do with the elaborately simple Train Spot and Young Folkies.

Music Played
Time Artist - Song (Album)

Bat For Lashes - Horse & I (Fur and Gold)
Ailie Robertson - The Exploding Bow (First Things First)

Train Spot
Josh Turner - Long Black Train (Long Black Train)

Ashley Hutchings - Black Joke (Grandson of Morris On)
Rachel Unthank & the Winterset - Blue's Gaen Oot O'the Fashion (The Bairns)
Christy Moore - Ride On (Ride On)

Folk On or Folk Off
Slow Club - Me and You (single)

Eddi Reader - Wild Mountainside (Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns)

Young Folkies
Last Orders - O'Keefe's, Unknown, Campdown Races (BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards)

The Queensberry Rules - New Colombus (Black Dog)
Laura Marling - Old Stone (Alas I Cannot Swim)
Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats (Veneer)

10/01/2009

Music Played
Artist - Song (Album)

Shooglenifty - Missed the Bypass / The Reid St Sofa / Fit're Ye Dain, Up Ma Vennel! (The Arms Dealer's Daughter)
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Sun Giant EP)
Thin Lizzy - Whiskey in the Jar (Rockers)
Tom Russell - Rider on an Orphan Train (The Man from God Knows Where)
Jim Moray - Leaving Australia (Low Culture)
Emily Smith - Winter Song (Too Long Away)
Mawkin: Causley - Come My Lads (Cold Ruin EP)
Davy Graham - Angi (Folk, Blues and Beyond)

Folk On or Folk Off
Lonnie Donnegan - Rock Island Line (Singles Anthology)

Phil Ochs - Another Country (Broadside Tapes)

The Legend of Stuff
Mawkin: Causley - Botany Bay (Cold Ruin EP)

Peggy Sue - The Sea The Sea (First Aid EP)

New Term, New Time

Fleeter than, er, foxes, RaW Folk makes another dart around the schedule to find its third home in three months. With the Sunday experiment abandoned, tune into RaW at 19:00 every Saturday for an hour of your RaW Folk.

Oh go on, it might be quite good.

30/11/2008

November 30th heralded the RaW Folk November 30th Special, an event celebrated by much rejoicing and a few seasonal tunes, some of which were a touch woeful and the remainder downright depressing. Bah!

The show also featured extensive plugging of RaW's annual Single of the Year poll (broadcast on Wednesday with Kings of Leon declared triumphant for the excitable Sex on Fire). Thanks to all those who backed RaW Folk's campaign and voted for White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes - they made it to a very creditable 14th place.


Music Played
Time Artist - Song (Album)

19:02 Richard Thompson - Friday on My Mind (1000 Years of Popular Music)
19:05 Chumbawamba - Add Me (The Boy Bands Have Won)
19:11 Karine Polwart - Dowie Dens of Yarrow (The Fairest Floo'er)
19:17 Steeleye Span - Gaudete (Below the Salt)
19:20 Yoriyos - Endoscopies (Buried My Heart at Wounded Knee)
19:27 Sufjan Stevens - Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time (Songs for Christmas)
19:33 Louis Killen - Up the Raw (The Iron Muse [Various Artists])
19:34 Joni Mitchell - River (Blue)
19:40 Malcolm Middleton - Cold Winter (5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine)
19:46 Ry Cooder - Footprints in the Snow (My Name is Buddy)
19:49 Richard Hawley - Wading Through the Waters of My Time (Coles Corner)
19:55 Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes)
19:59 KT Tunstall - Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas in Hawaii) (A Very KT Christmas EP)
20:02 Eliza Carthy - Oranges and Seasalt (Dreams of Breathing Underwater)
20:07 Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (Unhalfbricking)
20:13 Kate Rusby - Little Jack Frost (The Girl Who Couldn't Fly)
20:18 Scott Matthews - Passing Stanger (Passing Stranger)
20:24 Al Stewart - Lord Grenville (Year of the Cat)
20:29 Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York (If I Should Fall from Grace with God)
20:34 Thea Gilmore - When I Get Back to Shore (Liejacker)
20:37 Dubliners - All for Me Grog (The Dubliners)

The Legend of Stuff
20:41 Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band - The Carnal and the Crane (An Evening of Carols & Capers)

20:45 Nick Drake - Pink Moon (Pink Moon)
20:49 Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes)
20:53 Dick Gaughan - The Snows they Melt the Soonest (Handful of Earth)
20:58 Low - Just Like Christmas (Christmas EP)