Folk on Foot

Jon Boden is Matthew’s guest on this month’s Official Folk Albums Chart Show, bringing an exclusive performance of one of the Parlour Ballads from his new album. There’s also music from Talisk, Mairearad Green and Rachel Newton, Henry Parker and David Ian Roberts, The Shovel Dance Collective, The Rheingans Sisters, Naima Bock and Nina Nesbitt.

---

We rely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either...

Enjoy this classic episode from August 2020

The award winning singer, songwriter and guitarist Chris Wood has lived in Kent all his life. “If you keep moving around, how much can you trust your judgement?” he asks. “If you stop where you are, the world does eventually come to you.” Since the Brexit referendum and election of 2019, Chris has been in challenging mood. On this walk with his dog Dancer and Matthew Bannister, Chris performs his song “Take Back Control” and contrasts the commuters on the London-bound platform at 6 every morning with what he calls “the slope-shouldered, whey-faced broken people” in Faversham’s greasy spoons and declining market place. “This is my muse,” he tells us. “This darkness and this hypocrisy and these contradictions – I thrive on it”.

---

We rely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either...

For four hundred years, Stourbridge in the West Midlands was at the heart of Britain’s glass making industry. The local landscape was dotted with distinctive brick built cones, or chimneys, where the glass was made. The local singer and songwriter Dan Whitehouse made an album called “Voices From The Cones” based on recordings of the memories of glass workers. In this extraordinary episode he takes us to a former glass works - now a college teaching craft skills to neurodivergent students - and sings the songs inspired by this fascinating industry. And Matthew gets to try his hand at glass blowing!

---

We rely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either...

This month’s show features a beautiful live performance by Cara Dillon at the Grand Opera House in Belfast plus music from Gnoss, Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage, Gryphon, The Wandering Hearts, Martin Simpson and Skerryvore. Lucy Shields has all the gig and album release info and there’s news of a new episode of Folk on Foot featuring glass blowing.

---

We rely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either...

Enjoy this classic episode from August 2018

Eliza Carthy inherited her love of English music from her famous folk singing parents, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Norma had recently suffered a serious illness and Eliza moved back to the family home in the North Yorkshire fishing village of Robin Hood’s Bay to look after her. Eliza takes Matthew on a walk along the cliffs near her home, reflecting on her family heritage and then on to the farm where the whole extended family used to live when she was a child. Martin, Norma and Eliza’s aunt Ann and cousin Marry gather at the kitchen table for a rousing and emotional sing.

---

We rely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either...