Folk on Foot

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...

Kitty Macfarlane is known for her pure voice, poetic song writing and passion for the natural world. On this unexpectedly sunny January walk, she and Matthew Bannister climb the historic Burrow Mump Hill. Here she sings a song inspired by the view, “Man Friendship”.   As they walk along the nearby river, Kitty stops to sing her song about migration: “Glass Eel”. Then it’s off to her favourite bird...

Frank Turner is a man of contrasts: the old Etonian who became a punk; the heavy metal fan who became a folk-influenced singer songwriter. On this walk through his old haunts on the Holloway Road in North London he reveals the inspiration for his change in musical direction, calling in at the venue Nambucca where ""the scales fell from my eyes"" and he discovered the power of ""three chords and th...

On Monday 25th May – Spring Bank Holiday in the UK – we staged the Folk on Foot Front Room Festival 2 with an astonishing line up of artists. The show lasted for eight hours – but we have distilled it down to two hours of highlights, featuring: Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman, Chris Wood, Duncan Chisholm, Eliza Carthy, Frank Turner and Jess Guise, Gwilym Bowen Rhys, John Smith, Johnny Flynn, Kate Rusb...

Jarlath Henderson has been described as the “Jimi Hendrix of the uilleann pipes”.  He is also a fine singer and accomplished player of the whistle. At the age of 17 he became the youngest ever winner of the Radio 2 Young Folk award. He comes from Northern Ireland but has now made his home in Scotland where he combines his musical career with working as a doctor in emergency medicine. Hosted on Aca...

Su-a Lee is a classically trained cellist who loves breaking down musical barriers. With the group Mr McFall’s Chamber she’s played contemporary classical music in night clubs and she regularly collaborates with Scotland’s leading folk players.  She is also a keen walker and bagger of Munros. Sitting on a rock by the river at Sligachan, she tells Matthew Bannister the poignant story of climbing Be...

The Edinburgh-born harpist, fiddle player and singer Rachel Newton sings in both English and Gaelic and is a member of The Shee, The Furrow Collective and the Lost Words Spell Songs. We walked with her on the Isle of Skye in November 2019 where she was taking part in the wonderful Festival of Small Halls, in which top Scottish musicians come together to tour the community halls of the island. Host...

On Easter Bank Holiday Monday, April 13th 2020, we organised the Folk on Foot Front Room Festival - seven and a half hours of wonderful folk music from 15 top artists playing in their front rooms, linked by Matthew Bannister from his. Bella Hardy, Beth Porter and the Bookshop Band, Jon Boden, Julie Fowlis and Éamon Doorley, Karine Polwart, Kerry Andrew/You are Wolf, Kris Drever, Lisa Knapp, Martin...

The singer, songwriter and fiddle player Bella Hardy takes Matthew for a rain-sodden walk through the majestic countryside of the Edale Valley in the Peak District where she was brought up and has now returned to live. Undaunted by the weather, they go to the Penny Pot café, the 1811 Methodist Chapel where Bella teaches a singing group and on to her mother’s cottage where they stop for very welcom...

After a life on the road, folk legend Peggy Seeger has settled in the village of Iffley on the outskirts of Oxford.  In this episode she talks poignantly about her mother, a talented composer who died when she was fifty-three and Peggy was just eighteen.  Peggy recites a poem called “My Mother is Younger Than Me”.  She sings old union songs, including “The Miner’s Prayer”, recalls her time on the...

The guitarist, singer and songwriter Kris Drever was born and brought up on Orkney, the archipelago off the Northern coast of Scotland which is steeped in history. The walk starts in the main town of Kirkwall with its huge sandstone cathedral commemorating St Magnus who came to an untimely end. In the graveyard Kris sings “Winter Moon”. Then they head off to the shores of the great natural harbour...

In search of the festive spirit of Christmas – and bearing gifts -  we travel to the Peak District and Sheffield to hear the area’s unique local carols. Along the way we collect music from Jon Boden, Bella Hardy, The Melrose Quartet and the singers of the villages of Dungworth and Hathersage. We hear how the traditional carols written and sung by working people were thrown out of the church – and...

This episode has by far the largest cast of walkers we’ve ever assembled – and the most musicians.  The lead singer of Oysterband John Jones started walking from gig to gig and singing on the way long before our podcast was invented. He’s done it all over the country and he’s usually accompanied by a bunch of fans who call themselves the Reluctant Ramblers. On a scorching hot summer’s day, we join...

For twelve years, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nancy Kerr lived on a narrow boat, travelling the length and breadth of England’s inland waterways. As she walks on the towpath with Matthew Bannister, she tells how the experience inspired many of her songs – and performs two of them: “Queen of Waters” and “Tiller Song”. Nancy explains that folk music was part of her upbringing, w...

Martin Simpson performs some of the songs from his new album “Rooted” and talks to Matthew Bannister on the Big Barn stage at the BBC Countryfile Live event in the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sandwood Bay, at the far North Western tip of Scotland near Cape Wrath, is one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK. This wild, isolated place inspired the Scottish fiddle player and composer Duncan Chisholm’s album “Sandwood”.  He takes Matthew on the four-mile walk from the nearest road to experience the stark beauty of white sand, ancient rocks and rolling waves, telling stories of storms, h...

The singer and fiddle player Lisa Knapp takes Matthew to the south London borough of Tooting where she was born and brought up. She performs songs with links to the area and tells how she stumbled across the Tooting Tragedy – a story of neglect and ill treatment at a local children’s home in Victorian times that led to hundreds of deaths and caused an outcry led by Charles Dickens. Lisa uncovered...

John Smith is known for his delicate and intricate guitar work, honey-and-gravel voice and songs of lost love. He was born in Essex, but brought up in the seaside town of Brixham in Devon. Struck down by illness as a child, he took up the guitar and practiced obsessively in his attic bedroom overlooking the sea. In this episode, he takes Matthew to the harbour wall to sing “Salty and Sweet” and up...

Every winter, Rachael and Becky Unthank and their extended families invite their fans to join them for singing weekends in their native Northumberland. Some fifty people stay together at a bunkhouse where pianist/producer Adrian McNally does the cooking, and Rachel and Becky lead singing workshops. The weekend includes a session in the atmospheric local pub, where Matthew joins the group for a sin...

Regularly voted one of the world’s greatest guitarists, Martin Simpson has been nominated for an astonishing 23 Radio 2 Folk Awards – and won artist of the year twice. He was brought up in the North Lincolnshire steel town of Scunthorpe and takes Matthew on an emotional journey back to his childhood home, explaining how he hid from his formidable mother in the apple tree in the garden, went on ima...

The beautiful Lost Words book by artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane has become a cultural phenomenon, raising awareness of the importance of nature words in our lives. It has also spawned the Spell Songs project featuring some of our top folk artists. In this special edition of Folk on Foot, Matthew walks with Jackie and the singer, cellist and ukulele player Beth Porter (The Booksh...

The Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis takes Matthew Bannister for a snowy walk on the dramatic shores of Loch Ness near her home in the Scottish Highlands. Accompanied by her husband Eamon Doorley, we hear Julie’s beautiful clear voice singing a song linked to the area and a love song that brought the couple together for the first time.  As they head to the spectacular Foyers Falls, Julie explains that u...

Stick in the Wheel’s music has been described as “precision folk with anger, lust and blood.” The band’s founders Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter take Matthew Bannister for a walk through their East London stomping grounds, starting in a Victorian weaver’s house in Spitalfields, taking in Walthamstow Market and ending up in Epping Forest where they’re joined by fiddle player Ellie Wilson. Along the w...

Jon Cleave and Billy Hawkins of Fisherman’s Friends take Matthew Bannister for a walk around their beautiful home village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, telling tales and singing songs inspired by the seafaring history of the area. They invite us to fall in love with “The Maid of Madeira”, marvel at two ‘doubloons’ picked up in the harbour by Jon’s Uncle Andy, pay tribute to the fallen Cornish lads of...

Kerry Andrew has been described by Robert Macfarlane as “a writer and musician of frankly alarming talent”. She is a composer, novelist and vocalist who performs alt folk under the name You Are Wolf. In this episode she takes Matthew for a walk from her flat in South London, through surprisingly green parkland, to the historic Brockwell Lido where she persuades him to take a dip. Along the way she...