Folk on Foot

“My city, my people, my heart” – Jamie Webster loves his home city of Liverpool – and Liverpool loves Jamie Webster. The young singer and songwriter started out performing chants for fans of Liverpool FC, which led to a gig in front of 60,000 at the Champions League Final and a meeting with manager Jurgen Klopp. Now his songs of working-class life have made Jamie a local hero with two hit albums u...

Grace Petrie sometimes introduces herself on stage as “a socialist, feminist, lesbian protest singer”. Her acutely observed songs range from political and passionate to personal and profound.  She’s also been known to turn her hand to comedy. In this walk through her home city of Leicester she tells Matthew Bannister about her childhood and musical journey, reflects on what it means always to be o...

The drummer Johnny Kalsi (The Dhol Foundation, Transglobal Underground, Afro Celt Sound System, Imagined Village) takes us for a walk round Southall - an area of West London known as “Little India”. We visit a Sikh temple, marvel at the sumptuous fabrics and glittering jewellery in the bridal shops on the High Street and drop in to his favourite restaurant for “food like you’ve never tasted before...

We’re back on the glorious Shetland Isles for this episode and who better to show us around than the renowned local fiddle player Maurice Henderson (of Fiddlers Bid) and his friend the luthier and guitarist from Fair Isle Ewen Thomson? After Ewen demonstrates how to make a great violin, they take us to the beach where they tell folk tales, play traditional dance tunes and introduce us to the sea b...

Join us for a very special show streamed live from Cecil Sharp House. The show looks back at the highlights of 2021, the very first full year of The Official Folk Albums Chart. Hosted by Matthew Bannister with guest co-host Kitty Macfarlane, the show features live performances and interviews with artists that have featured in the chart over the past year including Spiers and Boden, Katherine Pridd...

“He said you could pluck songs out of the air - pluck them out of the air - and sing them bonny”. The great Northumbrian pipe player Kathryn Tickell describes the River Rede near her home as the backdrop and soundscape to her life. On its bank, she is joined by her Dad Mike to perform music, songs and stories inspired by the beautiful county where he brought her up and introduced her to the folk t...

The acclaimed singer and songwriter Declan O’Rourke takes us for a scenic walk near his home in the beautiful fishing village of Kinvara on the west coast of Ireland, singing songs inspired by the area as he goes.  Declan’s grandfather, an artist, was born and brought up in Kinvara. On our walk, Declan reflects on his first performance at an open mic night in Dublin where he suffered “an instant a...

In the shadow of the disused ironstone kilns of the Rosedale Valley in North Yorkshire, Ciderhouse Rebellion - fiddle player Adam Summerhayes and accordionist Murray Grainger - conjure up a soundscape of rare beauty - improvised on the spot. Then they add evocative poetry from Adam’s daughter Jessie to create,  in words and music, a picture of the harshness of Victorian industry in the midst of th...

A Bronze Age site on Dartmoor, six musical instruments, a feather, harmonica-enhanced beatboxing, a stone that is said to increase fertility, a fast flowing river, a baby and a caring grandmother - all ingredients of a wonderful walk with the award-winning duo Edgelarks (Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin). --- Access exclusive films of Edgelarks performing along our walk, along with over 100 other p...

Olivia Chaney wrote many of the songs for her critically acclaimed second solo album whilst living alone without electricity or mains water at her family’s remote and crumbling farmhouse on Hawnby Moor in North Yorkshire. On a hot summer’s day, she takes Matthew Bannister back across the Moor, singing and playing along the way, circled by curlews and lapwings, to share the atmospheric isolation th...

Question: What do you get when you go walking with the nature writer Robert Macfarlane and the actor and musician Johnny Flynn on a scorching hot summer's day in Wandlebury? Answer: A Neolithic track, an Iron Age fort, a Roman road, a holm oak, cow pats, a mighty avenue of sun-dappled beech, a buzzard, a grasshopper orchestra, a dragonfly, the stories of a mysterious white horse and a dread augury...

The singer, songwriter and artist Jenny Sturgeon has made her home on Shetland, a group of wild and wonderful islands in the North Atlantic. Her latest album “The Living Mountain” was inspired by the classic book about the Cairngorms by Nan Shepherd. On our atmospheric walk, with seabirds calling and waves crashing, Jenny reflects on finding inspiration for her music in nature as she performs song...

The wonderful English fiddle player Sam Sweeney has been a key member of Bellowhead, Leveret, Eliza Carthy’s Wayward Band and many other collaborations. He’s also made two acclaimed solo albums. He takes us up to the top of Swift’s Hill, where he plays the tune of the same name.  Along the way he tells stories of his hero Dave Swarbrick, his unfinished First World War violin and learning to play t...

A finger style guitarist with a uniquely impassioned vocal style, Jim Ghedi was born and brought up in the Crookes area of Sheffield. He takes Matthew Bannister to his Nan and Grandad’s terraced house where he heard a lot of Irish music as a child. Jim rejected folk music at first, but found his way back to it as a teenager. Now he’s steeped in the tradition, citing the guitar playing of Bert Jans...

The singer, fiddle, guitar and ukulele player Germa Adan was born in Haiti, grew up in Florida and now lives in the UK. She says the RSPB reserve in the Sandwell Valley has been her place of calm during the lockdowns – where she goes to contemplate and recharge. Germa is a rising star on the folk scene with a beguiling and original style. --- Access five exclusive films of Germa performing along o...

The multi talented musician, producer and lover of the natural world Cosmo Sheldrake takes Matthew Bannister for a walk in the wood near his home in Hampshire. As well as creating electronic music from the song of endangered bird species and the sounds of deep sea creatures, he demonstrates his skill as a beat boxer, Mongolian overtone chanter and bones player; climbs halfway up a tree to sing in...

23 amazing folk acts each performing an original love song for the Folk on Foot Festival of LOVE on Valentine’s Day 2021, featuring Heidi Talbot: Easter Snow; Seth Lakeman: The White Hare; Lady Nade: Sweet Honey Bee; Kris Drever: When We Roll In The Morning; O’Hooley and Tidow: Blanket; Chris Wood: The Sweetness Game; Nancy Kerr and James Fagan: Seven Notes; Bella Hardy: Redemption; Sam Lee: Sweet...

23 amazing folk acts each performing a traditional love song for the Folk on Foot Festival of LOVE on Valentine’s Day 2021, featuring Nancy Kerr and James Fagan: The Streams of Lovely Nancy: Heidi Talbot: The Blackest Crow; Seth Lakeman: Portrait of My Wife; Lady Nade: Good Looking/Hank Williams; Kris Drever: Westlin’ Winds; O’Hooley and Tidow: Lullabies for Flynn; Chris Wood: A Cornish Young Man;...

23 amazing folk acts each performing a cover version of a love song for the Folk on Foot Festival of LOVE on Valentine’s Day 2021, featuring Heidi Talbot: I Love You/Tom Waits and Allelujah/First of a Million Kisses/Fairground Attraction;  Seth Lakeman: Beeswing/Richard Thompson; Lady Nade: I Remember Everything/John Prine; Kris Drever: Michelle/The Beatles;  O’Hooley and Tidow: Teardrop/Massive A...

Come with us to the back garden of a house in the Peak District village of Grindleford. There, in a magical atmospheric workshop with fiddles, banjos and drying gourds hanging from the ceiling, we find the Rheingans Sisters and their Dad Helmut, who makes all their instruments. Rowan and Anna Rheingans grew up surrounded by music – and are now one of the most innovative and talented duos on the fo...

The legendary guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson takes Matthew Bannister for a walk around the areas of London where he grew up, began playing the guitar, formed Fairport Convention (inventing English folk rock)  and joined the vibrant music scene of the 1960s.  On the steps of his old school in Highgate Richard sings  “Man With Money” by the Everly Brothers. In Highgate Woods he sings his...

Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow have an uncanny ability to move you to tears one moment then have you roaring with laughter the next. In summer 2020 they were planning to capitalise on the new found fame caused by having their song “Gentleman Jack” as the theme tune of the hit BBC TV drama based on the life of Anne Lister. But the lockdown put paid to all the touring they’d planned.  So they stay...

The multi award winning Dorset duo Ninebarrow take Matthew Bannister for a walk in the glorious countryside of the Isle of Purbeck. Their exquisite harmonies ring out across the Bronze Age burial mounds at Nine Barrow Down (which gave the band its name) as they savour the spectacular view of Poole Harbour, Swanage and the Isle of Wight. They end up in St James’s Church in the village of Kingston w...

In our first post lockdown episode, actor and musician Johnny Flynn takes Matthew Bannister for a walk on the Hackney Marshes, a huge expanse of public land which has no fewer than 88 football pitches alongside a nature reserve which has grown up in disused gravel pits. As well as singing his distinctive, haunting songs, Johnny relates his near miss with a bear on the Camino to Santiago, reflects...

Another extraordinary Bank Holiday Monday virtual Festival from Folk on Foot, this time re-uniting musicians who couldn’t play together during the lockdown. The Breath; Eliza Carthy and David Delarre; Johnny Flynn and his band; Julie Fowlis, Éamon Doorley and Duncan Chisholm; Karine Polwart, Steven Polwart and Inge Thomson; Kris Drever, John McCusker and Phil Cunningham; Lady Nade, Kit Hawes and A...