Happy May Day everyone! How did you celebrate? I woke up in a hotel in Bristol after having a rather smahing night of DJ-ing at the newly revived Bristol Folk Festival with Mr Moray. Slap my wrists, sorry for being pants last month. I am soooo going to make up for it this month i promise. But what a month April was. It began at the end of the 'Life of Birds' tour with the Dumnonia launch gig at Fingle Bridge on Dartmoor. That was such a fun night, the entire glitterati of the Devon folk scene was there plus several surprise guests (a surprise to me even!) such as Mr Gavin Davenport who was down visiting from Sheffield and Marilyn Tucker of Wren Music brought along three singers/musicians from Newfoundland who were over visiting, amazing! I really couldn't of dreamt of a better night and in such a stunning location too.
You may have heard me chatting with Mr Harding on Radio 2 on the Wednesday night before last? More great opportunity for plugging, not just for Dumnonia but also for the Folk Trail; an insane bunch of people (who all happen to be friends of mine!) from Pennymoor Singaround who are spending April, May and June walking from Land's End to John o Groats PLUS stopping EVERY night for a pub session with the local folk scene, wherever they happen to be! I'd find that exausting enough without walking 20 miles between each pub! But it's not just for some daft joke in the pub that got a bit out of hand, they are also recording every night of the trail and creating an archive snapshot of the British folk scene at this point in history. I for one can't wait to hear all their stories when they get home. Understandably their blog isn't being updated too often but they are tweeting regularly, follow them @folktrail and send them muchos encouragement.
What else? Oh yes i had a fab night at the Red Lion Folk Club in Birmingham sharing the night with Belinda oHooley & Heidi Tidow plus their special guest Anna Esslemont. As you can imagine with that combination of people it was a very silly night! Also lovely to see the lovely Miss Lucy Ward wo came along to provide encouragement and extra silliness. Then over the St George's weekend i had two gigs in Kent organised by yet more lovely people; Julie & Gavin Atkins. In Tenterden & Frittenden respectively we had two rather fab knees-ups and were joined on both occasions by the hugely talented Rosie Davis who sang, played many instruments and clog danced on a square peice of lino from her old bathroom! We had a day off on Saturday and i was treated to a wonderful surprise; Julie, Gavin & Rosie took me to a friends yacht on the Swale. What i didn't realise was that their friends were melodeon genious Tim Edey and his dad! So we had just the most incredible day sailing, eating, drinking and playing music up on deck with happy Kentish seals floating by to catch an earful (do seals have ears?) life doesn't get much better than that i tell you. The weekend ended on Sunday in Frittenden at the Bell & Jorrocks with a fab session including Dan and Matt Quinn and dancer Kerry Fletcher came too which made it another excellent night.
Basically April was just an constant stream of fun, roll on May!
