Chester Folk Festival
Friday 23rd - Monday 26th May 2008

SPECIAL EVENTS

Saturday 2 pm 'Listen, Listen' - The Songs of Sandy Denny Sandy Denny was one of the finest female singers that Britain has ever produced. She came to prominence in the burgeoning folk club scene of the mid 1960’s and her brief career reached its apogee in the early 1970’s. Possessed of a truly extraordinary voice, she was also a fine songwriter with a unique style. As the lead singer of Fairport Convention and later Fotheringay, she was one of the leading lights of the Folk/Rock movement that sought to build bridges between those two musical genres and to bring elements of the folk tradition into the mainstream of popular music. Her remarkable life was cruelly cut short in April 1978 at the age of 31 by a tragic domestic accident. To mark the thirtieth anniversary of Sandy's untimely passing, Full House, aided and abetted by several guest singers, will pay a musical tribute to Sandy, who was much loved and is still much missed by the many people she touched with her songs and her singing.

Sunday 5 pm 'Vaughan Williams Stole my Folk Song' Sid Kipper - sometime singer, story-teller, morris dancer, musician and always humorist - has completed a mission. He's got his family's folk song back. Perhaps you've heard it? It's the one that goes "Fol-the-rol-me-daddy-oh, whack-fol-riddle-de-ree". At least it was when they lost it. By the time they retrieved it all its identifying marks had been removed and it had been turned into a rhapsody called 'The Mole Descending'. In this one and a half hour show Sid tells you everything you were afraid to know about folk singing but always wanted to ask. Along the way he traces the origins of the morris, and reveals how it was re-discovered by Cecil Sharphouse in the Norfolk village of Brampton. He traces its progress through the folk revival. He even demonstrates an early form of dancing, complete with hat and hankies.

Monday 1.30 pm Conservatoire Folk Ensemble The Conservatoire Folk Ensemble is a group of up to 50 students from Birmingham Conservatoire, led by Chester's own Joe Broughton. As part of their Spring Tour they are coming to Chester Folk Festival to present a one hour performance of their varied repertoire, which includes music from the English, Celtic and European folk traditions.