(Saturday)

We are delighted that Vin will be with us again this year. Especially to make up for the fact that, due to an administrative error last year, he was only able to perform a 3/4 hour set!

Vin Garbutt is reputed to have said that he is not interested in becoming a big star in the accepted sense. Nevertheless in the area of music where he performs, there is no bigger star. He prefers to be a big fish in a small pond. This attitude means that his need for privacy and a balanced home life are safeguarded and satisfied. What the world realised long before Vin did, was that the small pond had grown over the years into a considerable lake.

All this has happened without the hype from big Record Companies, and without the usual publicity from the mass media. He has performed all over the globe, and in parts of countries that the biggest stars will never see. This phenomenon has occurred solely by word of mouth, spread by people who have come across him, and felt the need to share this unique experience with their fellow countrymen.

THE man of British folk music

Throughout the 70's Vin's reputation grew rapidly until he became "the most sought after performer on the Folk Scene". The development of his 'Act' took in songs of the past and his own material, his introductions became more and more zany and funny, and his brilliant tin-whistle playing never ceased to amaze. "Half the fun on some of his numbers is spotting the story he has told you in the song he is singing" - to quote one review.
As "THE Man of British Folk Music" in the '80's he was asked to tour abroad: visiting the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Cyprus, Singapore, Thailand, and Bermuda.

We are very proud to welcome him for the first time at this Festival.

Bob Fox & Stu Luckley (Saturday)

Bob Fox and Stu Luckley took the folk world by storm when they began playing together in the late 1970s. The duo's reputation was cemented in 1978 when they released Nowt So Good'll Pass, their debut album which won Melody Maker's 'Folk Album Of The Year' award. The acclaim has stood the test of time: milestone folk albums are few and far between but Nowt So Good'll Pass remains up there with the very best and has proved enduringly popular.

The success of the album led to Bob and Stu touring intensively. As well as performing at every major folk club and folk festival in Britain, they played in continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand and also toured with Richard Thompson and Ralph McTell.

(Friday)

BBC Award winning trio Uiscedwr have got BIGGER...

The Uiscedwr Big Band features six of the folk world’s finest musicians performing hot new arrangements of Uiscedwr material guaranteed to get you dancing in the aisles.

Joining Anna Esslemont (fiddle/vocals) and Cormac Byrne (bodhran/percussion) will be the awesomely talented Karen Tweed (Poozies, Swap) on piano accordion, master of the brass Neil Yates (Michael McGoldrick band) on trumpet and flugelhorn, Ireland’s fretboard wizard Dylan Bible (Buttterfly Band) on guitar and newcomer Nick Waldock on bass.

Their hugely varied repertoire ranges from funked-up folk tunes, to scat, to heart wrenching – songs. Call them a ‘folk’ band if you like, but the term fails to do justice to the many musical influences they draw on – jazz, Latin, blues, Yiddish, and more – to create their unique sound. Listen. And let them take you round the world.

With awards from the BBC and the PRS Foundation under their belts, a bone marrow transplant for leading lady Anna, and two highly acclaimed albums, Uiscedwr are leaping into 2008 stronger than ever, ready to set the folk scene on fire with their new Big Band.

It’s fast, it’s furious, it’s seriously funky folk music. Uiscedwr are back, and this time they’re BIG. Don’t miss it.

From the moment a Welsh fiddle player/singer Anna Esslemont met an Irish bodhran virtuoso Cormac Byrne late one strange, magical night when both were students in Manchester in 2002 and they resolved to make sweet music together, their rise was instant and spectacular.

Forming a trio, they won the prestigious BBC Young Folk Award having barely played a gig together, starred at the Cambridge Folk Festival the following year, went on tour to be greeted by ecstatic, jigging audiences and were nominated for a "grown-ups" BBC Folk Award after making a debut album 'Everywhere' that had critics and fans alike rolling on their backs and kicking their legs in the air in delight. They were young, vivacious, adventurous, exciting and original and their impossibly captivating way with everything from a bunch of reels to dark songs about broken relationships had the folk world eating out of their hands. With the sort of energised momentum they seemed to be effortlessly igniting, it seemed only a matter of time before the rest of the world would follow.

Phil Beer (Friday)

Phil Beer was born in Exminster, Devon, in 1953. His reputation as a multi-instrumental wizard has gained him international status for over two decades. Yet these rare skills also have their roots in the musical traditions of Southwest England: 'I was born in Exminster, Devon. My mother, who is Cornish, still plays organ in her local chapel, and in his spare time, my father was a violinist in local dance bands'. Phil first began to play fiddle, guitar and mandolin whilst still at school in Teignmouth.
This passion for acoustic music was especially stirred by the Davey Graham album 'Folk Blues and Beyond'. He played his first gig when he was fourteen and by the time he was sixteen he was performing regularly. Phil worked with Paul Downes as a duo and also in Arizona Smoke Revue. He joined the Albion Band in 1984 and stayed with them until 1991, touring extensively at home and abroad, and recorded many albums. Show of Hands became a full-time partnership from 1991. Phil continues to do session work, most notably on the Rolling Stones 'Steel Wheels' album, and released the acclaimed instrumental album entitled 'The Works' in Summer 1996.

ISLA St CLAIR (Friday)

From her first public appearance at the age of ten, Isla St Clair proved she had inherited the rich singing tradition of her native North-East Scotland . In her teens, Isla was soon in the top rank of British folk singers, winning several awards including “Best Female Folk Singer”, and touring the world. She then launched a second career in light entertainment and became known to millions for her numerous television appearances on all the leading variety and chat shows including The Royal Variety show, Morcambe and Wise Show, Parkinson and most notably as co-host on the BBC’s long running The Generation Game which won her “Best Female TV Personality”.

Tom Lewis (Canada) (All weekend)

As winner of the inaugural "Trophée Stan Hugill", French fans dub Tom "The Springsteen of Sea Chanteys". Old Songs Festival (Altamont NY) declares "This man knows the sea ... from the bottom up!", whilst Living Tradition (UK) says "Although I always knew he was good, I was not quite prepared for HOW good." 24 years in the British Royal Navy, "provides him with that vitally authentic stance with which to tackle nautical song" Living Tradition.

Tom's repertoire—from traditional shanties to songs fashioned out of his own seafaring background—recruits his audience for a voyage by turns reflective, dramatic and humorous. Now resident in Canada's Rocky Mountains, Tom was born in Northern Ireland and that Celtic heritage is obvious in his clear, strong voice, evoking quiet sorrow for a fisherman lost to the sea just as honestly as it powers out a shanty "to be heard above the gales."

With songs that have become folk standards; known and sung wherever great choruses ring out; Tom accompanies himself on button accordion and ukulele—but it's that powerful vocal style and infectious humour—that quality of entertaining—which keeps audiences coming back again ... and again.