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Bellowhead
Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide range of musical styles and influences. The band included percussion and a four-piece brass section. Bellowhead's bandmembers played more than 20 instruments among them, whilst all performers provided vocals. Their third album, ''Hedonism'' (2010), is the highest selling independently released folk album of all time, having sold over 60,000 copies and earning the band a silver disk. The band parted after their final gig at Oxford Town Hall in May 2016. In 2020, the band reformed for a reunion concert and, as of 2022, are undertaking a reunion tour, visiting Portsmouth, Oxford, Leicester, Cambridge, London, Brighton, Southend-on-Sea, Ipswich, Bath, Plymouth, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Harrogate, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester. ...
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Andy Mellon
Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide range of musical styles and influences. The band included percussion and a four-piece brass section. Bellowhead's bandmembers played more than 20 instruments among them, whilst all performers provided vocals. Their third album, ''Hedonism'' (2010), is the highest selling independently released folk album of all time, having sold over 60,000 copies and earning the band a silver disk. The band parted after their final gig at Oxford Town Hall in May 2016. In 2020, the band reformed for a reunion concert and, as of 2022, are undertaking a reunion tour, visiting Portsmouth, Oxford, Leicester, Cambridge, London, Brighton, Southend-on-Sea, Ipswich, Bath, Plymouth, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Harrogate, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester. ...
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Paul Sartin
Paul Sartin (20 February 1971 – 14 September 2022) was an English singer, instrumentalist, composer and arranger, specialising in oboe and violin. He was best known for his work with the folk band Bellowhead, but also played with three-piece Faustus and the folk/comedy duo Belshazzar's Feast. Early life Sartin was brought up in Willesden, London. He was educated at Anson Primary School, Highgate School, on an assisted place, and subsequently moved to the Purcell School for Young Musicians, again on an assisted place from Brent music service. Between school and university, he played oboe with a musical theatre troupe called Gloria, and the English National Opera's Baylis project. He then took up a choral scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a 2:1 in music. Career Upon leaving Oxford University, Sartin sang as a lay clerk at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, a post he held for five years. During that period, he gained a diploma – Licentiate of the Ro ...
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Sam Sweeney
Sam Sweeney (born 27 February 1989 in Nottingham) is a multi-instrumental English folk musician. Career Sweeney was introduced to folk music as a child via his parents' record collection and taught himself to play traditional pieces by ear. He started playing the fiddle at age six, and first performed as a soloist at folk festivals in 2001. From 2002 to 2010, he was part of the East Midlands-based folk band Kerfuffle, playing fiddle, viola, and cajon, and singing. When Kerfuffle disbanded, Sweeney continued playing with accordion player and singer Hannah James as the duo Hannah James and Sam Sweeney. From 2008 to 2016, he became a member of the award-winning eleven-piece folk band Bellowhead, playing fiddle and English bagpipes, as a replacement for former member Giles Lewin. Sweeney played with Bellowhead until their final gig in May 2016 at Oxford Town Hall. He has toured with Jon Boden and the Remnant Kings, playing both drums and fiddle, sometimes simultaneously. He ...
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Jon Boden
Jon Boden (born 17 March 1977) is a singer, composer and musician, best known as lead singer and main arranger of Bellowhead. His first instrument is the fiddle and he is a proponent of "English traditional fiddle style" and also of "fiddle singing", both of which he employed in Bellowhead, in the duo Spiers & Boden, and previously as a member of Eliza Carthy’s Ratcatchers. Boden has been the recipient of 11 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, more than any other musician. He was awarded honorary doctorates by Durham University and the Open University in 2019. Boden also fronts his own band the Remnant Kings, put together in 2009 to perform his post-apocalyptic song cycle ''Songs From The Floodplain''. He has also made contributions as a fiddler, singer and guitarist, to three albums with Fay Hield & The Hurricane Party. In 2010 he launched a project to record and deliver A Folk Song A Day on line, aiming to inspire others to build a repertoire of songs and engage in social singin ...
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Justin Thurgur
Justin Thurgur (born 1974) is a British trombonist and composer/arranger. Biography He is most well known for his work with the English folk group Bellowhead, who he played with from its formation in 2004 until they called it a day in May 2016. Bellowhead were winners of five 'Best Live Act' awards, two 'Best Group' awards and one 'Best Album' award from the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. They were Artists in Residence at the Southbank Centre, South Bank Centre from 2007. In 2014 they signed to Island Records for their fifth full album 'Revival'. Thurgur has been collaborating with the pianist and composer Kishon Khan since 1996. Initially Thurgur joined Khan's Afro-Latin Jazz group 'The Bonobo Orchestra', then in 1999 they formed the Cuban-Funk outfit 'Motimba' together. Currently Thurgur is working with Khan in the pianist's Bangla/Latin/Afro/Jazz project 'Lokkhi Terra' and in Thurgur's Afro-Jazz group. His album for this project 'No Confusion' was released in July 2016 on their ...
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John Spiers
John Spiers (born 1975) is an English melodeon, concertina and bandoneon player. He is widely recognised as one of the leading English melodeon players of his generation. Career left, Performing with Jackie Oates at Purbeck Valley Folk Festival in 2021 Spiers is best known for his work with Jon Boden in the duo Spiers and Boden and the band Bellowhead. He also played with Eliza Carthy's former band The Ratcatchers in the mid-noughties. Since Bellowhead called it a day in 2016, Spiers has released two highly acclaimed albums with Peter Knight, Well Met (2018) and Both in a Tune (2021), which has been described as 'An extraordinary collaboration between two musicians at the absolute top of their game'; he also plays regularly with Peter Knight'Gigspanner Big Band whose 2020 album Natural Invention has been described as 'a piece of music that feels thrillingly, frighteningly, beautifully of our time... some of the most important and exhilarating art ever to sit under the b ...
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Burlesque (Bellowhead Album)
''Burlesque'' is the first full-length album by Bellowhead. Track listing Personnel * Jon Boden - lead vocals , fiddle, tambourine * John Spiers - melodeon, Anglo-concertina, backing vocals * Benji Kirkpatrick - guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, backing vocals * Andy Mellon - trumpet, flugelhorn, backing vocals * Justin Thurgur - trombone * Brendan Kelly - saxophone, bass clarinet, backing vocals * Gideon Juckes - sousaphone, tuba, helicon, backing vocals * Pete Flood - drums, glockenspiel, Stomp Box, frying-pan, knives and forks, party blowers * Rachael McShane - cello, fiddle, vocal * Paul Sartin - fiddle, oboe, backing vocals, megaphone * Giles Lewin - fiddle, bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, ..., backing vocals. References Bellowhea ...
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Spiers And Boden
Spiers and Boden are an England, English folk music, folk duo. John Spiers plays Diatonic button accordion, melodeon and concertina, while Jon Boden sings and plays fiddle and guitar while stamping the rhythm on a stomp box. John Spiers, Spiers and Jon Boden, Boden were founding members of the folk band Bellowhead. Biography They began playing together in 1999 and their first album as a duo was ''Through & Through'' (2001). In 2002 they were both session musicians on Eliza Carthy's album ''Anglicana'', and toured with her as part of her band The Ratcatchers. However it was their second album, ''Bellow'', in 2003 that drew significant attention. The tunes and songs were mostly traditional, grounded in the Morris dancing, Morris tradition. In the same year they won the "Horizon Award" in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, followed by the "Best Duo" category in 2004. Together they play fiddle, guitar, assorted squeezebox instruments, a stomp box and they both sing – a combination whic ...
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Giles Lewin
Giles Lewin is a British violinist and bagpiper. Currently a member of The Carnival Band, he was also a founding member of the folk band, Bellowhead. Biography He was born in Essex in 1960 or slightly earlier. At age nine, he sang the female lead in Mozart's "Bastien et Bastienne". At Cambridge University he acquired a love of Irish traditional music. His admiration for William Lawes led him to join a group called The Medieval Players (1981–1987). In 1983 they performed Rabelais's " Gargantua" with actors, puppets and acrobats. Their version of medieval music was gutsy, compared to most early music consorts of the time. In 1987 he became a founder member of the Dufay Collective. He was also a member of the group "Afterhours" (1989–1995). In 1989 Lewin spent several months in Cairo to study Arabic violin under Ashraf al Sarki. Lewin is a vocalist and plays fiddle, vielle, rebec, gittern, shawms, recorder, mandolin, pipe and tabor. His most remarkable skills are as a p ...
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Belshazzar's Feast (band)
Belshazzar's Feast were an English folk music duo comprising singer/oboist/fiddler Paul Sartin and piano accordionist Paul Hutchinson. They have a reputation for slapstick spoken, physical and musical comedy as well as fine musicianship. Origins Sartin and Hutchinson met in the mid-1990s when they were both members of the folk-rock band Life Of Reilly, which existed to write music to satirise the construction of the Newbury bypass. After a few performances they left the band to form a duo. They began working for ceilidhs and social dances, working with caller Andrew Shaw on a project exploring the work of the 18th-century composer Nathaniel Kynaston, which led to two albums, ''Mr Kynaston’s Famous Dance volume 1'' (2000) and ''volume 2'' (2002). Another album drawn from the social dance repertoire, ''John Playford’s Secret Ball'', followed in 2001. During 1996 and 1997, Sartin and Hutchinson formed the core of the Breeze Band, backing the Scottish singer Ian Bruce. Two r ...
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Benji Kirkpatrick
Benji Kirkpatrick (born 1976) is an English folk singer and musician, who plays guitar, bouzouki, mandolin and tenor banjo. A son of folk musicians John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris, he was brought up in Shropshire. Previously a member of Bellowhead and the Seth Lakeman band, he now performs as a solo artist and also as a member of both Faustus and Steeleye Span. He lives in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Kirkpatrick's album of acoustic covers of Jimi Hendrix songs was released in 2015. Discography EPs *''People'', EDJ Records – EDJ014, 2007 Albums * ''Dance in the Shadow'', WildGoose Studios – WGS291CD, 1998 * ''Half a Fruit Pie'', Fellside Recordings – FECD181, 2004 * ''Boomerang'', Navigator Records Navigator Records is a small independent record label in the United Kingdom, specialising in folk and roots music. It is wholly owned by Proper Music Distribution and was launched in 2008. Musicians who have recorded on Navigator Records incl ... – ...
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Hannah James And Sam Sweeney
Hannah James and Sam Sweeney were an English folk duo, comprising Hannah James ( piano accordion, vocals, clogs) and Sam Sweeney (violin, viola, octave viola, English bagpipes, nyckelharpa, Hardanger fiddle). History Hannah James and Sam Sweeney had been playing together for many years as part of the band Kerfuffle, but only officially became a duo in 2009. In 2010 they were nominated for the BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ... folk award, 'Horizon Award'. Also in 2010, they won the 'Best Newcomers' at the Hancock Awards. At the 2013 folk awards they were nominated for 'Best Duo' and Sweeney was nominated for 'Musician of the Year'. They ceased performing as a duo in mid-2014. Discography *'' Catches and Glees'' (2009) *'' State and Ancientry'' (Ap ...
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