FESTIVAL MUSIC
FOLK
HITLIST
I ACOUSTIC MUSIC T Season ticket week 1 £9.60; CENTRE The leading venue Season ticket week 2 MS for concerts and informal £6.80.
sessions with guest I VUJICSICS One of the musicians, food and bars, greatest European tolk open every night of the groups comes lrom Festival. Full details in the Hungary. Superb singer Fringe Programme. Marta Sehestyen. Acoustic Music Centre, Oueens Hall, Clerk Street Chambers street (Fringe (Fringe Venue 72) see Venue 25) 220 2462. Until 2 2019. St Johns Church, Sept. Open all day, but West End, Princes Street entrance by ticket only ; (Fringe Venue 126) 23, 24 Bpm—1am. Fri or Sat £1 .80; 3 Aug, 1pm. £4 (£3).
Suns or weekdays 80p; 9 I AWATINAS Music from
Season ticket £17.50; 5 the top at the world. Songs,
costume. and instruments ot Bolivia.
Riddles Court, Lawnmarket (Fringe Venue 11) 11am—1pm. 3-Day Workshop 26 (24) (mil days, St Johns, West End (Fringe Venue 126) 6.30pm, 3 Concerts, 30 Aug-1 Sept, £4 (23): St Johns 17-22 Aug,1pm. “(23).
I BOD PATEBSON Folk songs from the Greig Duncan Collection, from one 01 Scotland's greatest interpreters. Ceilidh with
Norman Chalmers takes stock of the best in this year’s folk music. Below — previews of the most exciting names.
Bod Paterson, Arthur Johnstone and others. Not too traditional song and dance.
Creig Duncan Concert (Book Festival) Charlotte Square. Studio theatre. 22 Aug. 6.30pm. Tickets include entrance to Book Festival £2.25(£1.25): Ceilidh (Book Festival) Charlotte Square, Spiegeltent. 18 Aug. 8pm. Tickets include entrance to Book Festival £3.50 (£1.75).
okelled Pink
Norman Chalmers gets to grips with one of Britain’s most popular folk musicians.
At last month‘s Rothbury Folk Festival, which is very much a local, Northumbrian, affair, she’s at the evening concert, as she has been since her early teens. Her father, a noted singer, is MC-ing the stream ofplayers, singers and poets in the wonderful setting of the old cattle market. Kathryn Tickell is quite at home here, cheering on the captivating harmonica playing ofold Will Atkinson or getting up to play fiddle behind Northumbrian master piper Joe Hutton. But after only a few days she has to pack her instruments and slot back into the endless round ofclubs. festivals, recording dates, planes and motorways.
At 21 she has one of the highest profiles of any British folk musician. People are fascinated by this attractive young woman who is so. . . normal, who plays the small pipes yet obviously finds this as unusual as playing guitar, shopping in a supermarket or watching ‘Ncighbours‘. Through her, the general public have discovered that England has a bagpipe, maybe even a culture beyond the soaps and the semis.
She is a very fine piper, and her fiddle playing is becoming as eloquent. And that is what she does: disarms and amuses the audience with a chat about the tunes or the people she got them from, and then plays solo.
But this Prince and Lou Reed fan is no stickler for tradition, as she often adapts tunes to the pipes or writes her own. Sometimes she comes in for a bit ofstick. ‘There‘s a tune I wrote. the Northumbrian pipes fraternity don't much like. It’s called “Andrew Knight‘s Favourite", and it‘s odd. That’s just how it came out. Andrew Knight is a very strange person so it had to be a strange tune, but it hasn‘t been going down well at all. But it‘s funny because the real traditional musicians like Willy Taylor and Will Atkinson might say that it‘s not their kind of thing, but they are right behind me saying that I should be writing them. The tradition has got to go forward.‘
Andrew is a well known Newcastle concertina player, and not offended in the slightest. He was still playing away in a big Rothbury session when I asked Kathryn about two famous bass players. ‘Danny Thompson plays on my latest album. That was great, he pushed me musically as much as anyone. We will be doing gigs together, as a band with Chris Newman on guitar. And Sting wants me to record with him. But I‘m busy, he‘s busy, so it‘s not fixed yet. But there‘s plenty of time.‘ (Norman Chalmers)
I Kathryn Tickell Acoustic Music Centre (Fringe Venue 25), 220 2462. 19 Aug, 7.30pm, £5 (£3.50).
be seen when Ireland‘s
leading player Maire Ni
: Chathasaigh plays in
concert with guitarist
Chris Newman; and
Scotland‘s Mary
MacMaster and Patsy Seddon. collectively
; known as Sileas, perform as a harp duo on the normal gut-strung instrument and the rarer
wire-strung model.The rhythmic, melodic and
RINGING STRINGS
instrumentsisdelightful.
, Both duos move between The small harp, Irish or
Scottish is now more popular than at any time in its history. The revival has succeeded to the extent that craftsmen harp-builders have full order books and long waiting lists. while new makers arrive on the scene regularly. The Clarsach Society has been ' instrumental in keeping I interest in the harp and its I repertoire when it seemed I
and contemporary songs and instrumentals. Mary and Patsy also use an electric, solid state harp which is played through ' pedals and effects to create sounds never imagined in Rory Dall or O‘Carolan’s times.
I Sileas Acoustic Music Centre (Fringe Venue 25)
£3 (£2). to be in decline. but it is I Maire Ni Chathasaigh the professional and Chris Newman
performers who take it to new audiences at home and abroad. The best ofits music and technique can
Acoustic Music (‘entre (Fringe Venue 25) 220 2462.18 Aug. 7.30pm. £3.50(£3).
i tonal interplay betwen the
the ancient traditional airs
22()2462.20Aug.7.30pm.
Paine, the British writer and political theorist, who inspired Robert Burns and the American movement towards independence. His Rights OfMan, in support ofthe French Revolution. succeeded in getting him accused of treason. and he fled to France where Robespierre imprisoned him. So he wrote some more. Gone are the days when a pamphlet could inspire a revolution. but we still have. thank goodness, songwriters of such common sense and
ROY BAILEY/LEON RUSSELSON
Politics is a subject never far away from folk songwriters— although it would be nigh on impossible to find a songwriting Tory. Any honest, sustained thought would blow the Right‘s argumentsaway. Roy Bailey and Leon Rosselson do just that. Black humour and irony
abound, and their quality. professionalism is
profound. given that they I Tom Paine, The French have been performing and Revolution and Liberty recording since the (Fringe) Theatre
Sixties. The subject of their performance at the Theatre Workshop is Tom
WorkshOp (Venue 20), 226 5425. 20 Aug. 8pm.£5 (£3.50).
GREGSON/ COLLISTER
(‘live Gregson and Christine (‘ollister are the King and Queen of the new English roots music. They are probably the
jazz. rock and other things. It works in a folk club because it‘s acoustic, and different.‘
But his background is rock music. He once played in the punk era on the Stiff Records British tour and for years was in the band Any Trouble. Previous hassles of life in bands have sometimes been too much to bear. but now with Christine's beautiful, clear vocals and their new electric/acoustic outfit they are reachinga new audience. playing bigger venues. and avoiding the pigeonholes. I Clive Gregson/Christlne ColliSlBtOueen‘s Hall
biggest draw on the club and festival circuit down there. but not so well known in Scotland.
it was only a few years ago that Christine‘s remarkable voice caught Clive‘s attention. and soon she had joined him in ; the Richard Thompson ; group. Then, as Chris says, ‘Folk clubsjust happened. We just got together an acoustic set when we weren‘t playing I in the band. And we found you could play whatever you liked. dress how you liked. An easy way of performing.‘
Clive, who writes the songs and plays guitar.
thinks that ‘you couldn‘t (Fringe Venue 72) 668 call what we do folk 2019. 20—21 Aug. 6.30pm. music. It‘s blues, pop. £5.50(£4).
The List 18- 24 August 198943