At the Helm (From The Northern Echo)

At the Helm

3:53pm Thursday 29th September 2011 in Folk By Jez Lowe, Folk Music Columnist

FOLK music fans from across the North will be congregating in the handsome North Yorkshire town of Helmsley this weekend for their annual, small but perfectly formed folk festival.

The stellar line-up includes myself, award-winning duo John Tams and Barry Coope, Irish band Craobh Rua, guitar genius Steve Tilston, American chanteuse Debbie McClatchy, Yorkshire instrumentalist Robin Garside, songwriter Anna Shannon and many more.

There are lots of singarounds, sessions and dance displays happening throughout the weekend, and it’s definitely the place to round off this year’s festival season.

Elsewhere, Judy Dinning and Kenny Spiers are at Washington’s Davy Lamp on Saturday, Ken Wilson abandons the family for a night at Westoe Club in South Shields on Sunday, and Irish singer and story-teller extraordinaire Colum Sands is at Cramlington’s Hind on Tuesday.

Tomorrow, on BBC4, fans of the acoustic singer-songwriter style can take a trip down memory lane with some interesting archive clips, featuring the likes of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and the like, spread across the evening.

Over on Sky Arts, meanwhile, there’s quite a bit of folk music popping up, with more to come I hear, much of it filmed at this year’s Cambridge Festival. Mainstream radio however, still restricts itself to a weekly hour every Wednesday, courtesy of Mike Harding, with a smattering of roots music hidden away on Radio Three if you can find it.

Hopefully things may improve at some point, but in the meantime it’s all worth listening to, so check it out. Finally, Darlington has to bid a sad farewell to a well-loved singer, musician and organiser, with the death of Tom Hughes, who has run the Arts Centre Folk Club for many years, and was a popular figure throughout the North-East and beyond. He’ll be sorely missed by us all.