DESPITE our dyed-in-the-wool folky reputations, a lot of us on the UK scene, performers and audience alike, have an astonishingly wide range of taste in music, and many of us will be interested in the Summertyne Americana Festival that starts at Gateshead’s Sage this weekend.

It’s not such a leap after all from British folk songs to country music, and acts like The Handsome Family, Tim Erikson, Roseanne Cash and Jacob Dylan have also acknowledged their debt to the music of these isles many times in the past.

All these and many more will be descending on Gateshead in the days ahead.

The Scarborough Seafest will also be in full swing this weekend, with a great selection of mainly English performers on display, including Rebecca Findlay, ex- Spinner Hughie Jones, Dick Miles, Chris Parkinson and Richard Grainger. On the local club scene, Anna Shannon is at Skelton’s Duke William tonight, Vin Garbutt is at The Station in Loftus tomorrow, Stan Graham and Loose Connections are at The Candlelight in Newton Aycliffe on Tuesday and George Unthank is centre-stage at Birtley Catholic Club on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, tickets for this summer’s Saltburn Festival are selling fast. Among those booked for the weekend of August 13-15 are Dave Burland, Bob Fox, Gary and Vera Aspey, Johnny Silvo, The Wilsons, and a special performance of Brian Childs’ folk operetta The Visiter, which will be raising funds for the re-fitting of the Seaham lifeboat. Many of us will recall the tragedy of the early Sixties when this boat was lost in action, and now that very same craft has been reclaimed and re-adopted by it’s hometown, as a fitting memorial for those who were lost all those years ago.

Brian’s songs and story, however, tell a much more positive and happier tale from the North Yorkshire coast, and the presentation is a great addition to the Saltburn line-up.