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The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2010 winners
Posted on January 30th, 2010 in World Music by Songlines.
On February 1, the winners of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2010 were announced at a ceremony in London. On December 2, the Mike Harding Show on BBC Radio 2 announced the nominees and they included a record six nominations for sensational guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson for Folk Singer of the Year, Best Album, Best Traditional Track, Musician of the Year and two of the nominations in the Best Original Song category. Quite a spread bet!
The other nominees display the young vibrancy of the folk scene today with the likes of Cara Dillon, Jackie Oates, Jon Boden, the Unthanks and Megson.
The Winners were:
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Nanci Griffith and Dick Gaughan
FOLK SINGER OF THE YEAR:
Winner: Jon Boden
Other nominees:
Cara Dillon
Jackie Oates
Martin Simpson
BEST DUO:
Winner: Show of Hands
Other nominees:
Belshazzar’s Feast
Damien Barber & Mike Wilson
Megson
BEST GROUP:
Winner: Lau
Other nominees:
Bellowhead
Mawkin:Causley
The Unthanks
BEST ALBUM:
Winner: Hill of Thieves – Cara Dillon
Other nominees:
Here’s The Tender Coming – The Unthanks
Hyperboreans – Jackie Oates
True Stories – Martin Simpson
BEST ORIGINAL SONG:
Winner: Arrogance Ignorance and Greed – Steve Knightley
(performed by Show of Hands)
Other nominees:
Home Again – Martin Simpson
One Day – Martin Simpson/Martin Taylor (performed by Martin Simpson)
The Testimony of Patience Kershaw – Frank Higgins (performed by The Unthanks)
BEST TRADITIONAL TRACK:
Winner: Sir Patrick Spens – Martin Simpson
Other nominees:
Cutty Wren – Mawkin:Causley
Spencer the Rover – Cara Dillon
The Isle of France – Jackie Oates
HORIZON AWARD:
Winner : Sam Carter
Other nominees:
Hannah James and Sam Sweeney
Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts
Nancy Wallace
MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR:
Winner: John Kirkpatrick
Other nominees:
John McCusker
Martin Simpson
Saul Rose
BEST LIVE ACT:
Winner: Bellowhead
Other nominees:
Edward II
Lau
The Bad Shepherds
FOLK CLUB OF THE YEAR:
The Magpies Nest
Digital downloads with the new Songlines Digital subscription
Posted on January 21st, 2010 in Songlines Blog by Songlines.
Want to hear the music you’re reading about? Subscribers to Songlines Digital are now entitled to five free track downloads with each issue of the magazine – that’s 40 free tracks a year.
The tracks available with the current issue [#65] are from two of the leading lights of Sephardic song – Yasmin Levy and Mor Korbasi, worldly Oregon-based collective Pink Martini, Cameroonian singer-guitarist André-Marie Tala and Hungarian folk legend Márta Sebestyén.
Subscribers to the print edition can subscribe to Songlines Digital for just £9.75 a year – that’s £10 off the yearly subscription price of £19.75.
Songlines Digital looks and reads just like the printed edition and is fully indexed and searchable. Songlines Digital will allow you to read your copy of Songlines on any computer and web browser worldwide. In each edition you are able to zoom in on, print and bookmark features, navigate and browse easily through issues and link to external websites from editorial features and adverts.
A new BBC Four series charts the impact of Latin music on US popular culture
Posted on January 20th, 2010 in World Music by Songlines.
In the last half century, Latin music has risen from the barrios of New York, Los Angeles, Miami and the Mexican border cities to become a defining sound of the new USA and the world beyond. A new four-part BBC Four series – Latin Music USA – screening in January and February, reveals the stories behind this rise and the music and stars it has created.
The first part focuses on the moment when Carlos Santana brought Latin blues to Woodstock in 1969 and turned the heads of a generation. Part two charts the rise of salsa from Havana clubs to New York’s mighty Fania Records with music from Ruben Blades, Willie Colon, Johnny Pacheco and others. The third programme looks at the ever-evolving music of the Mexican borderlands with acts like Los Lobos, Ritchie Valens, Santana and Linda Ronstadt. And the final part reveals the rise of Gloria Estefan’s Miami sound, which paved the way for Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Shakira and the new Latin sound of reggaeton. In its breadth, this series pays tribute to a Latin music scene that is fast coming to define modern pop music today.
Two concerts curated in association with the BBC will take place at London’s Barbican on January 24-25 to complement the series
African Soul Rebels 2010 tour hits the UK from February 18
Posted on January 7th, 2010 in World Music by Songlines.
The sixth African Soul Rebels tour of the UK takes place February 18-March 3 with three more diverse acts from across the length and breadth of the continent. The headline act is one of the great women of Malian song, Oumou Sangaré. Her most recent album Seya [reviewed in #58] has been nominated for a Grammy award, and she continues to be one of the greatest singers in the musical powerhouse nation of Mali.
She is joined by one of those timeless West African big band ensembles whose music never grows tired. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou from Benin create a vibrant mix of James Brown-inspired funk and soul and voudon sato and sakpata rhythms as contested to on their new release Volume Two Echos Hypnotiques on the Analog Africa label [reviewed in #66].
You have to travel down the length of Africa to find the final member of this year’s African Soul Rebels trio. Kalahari Surfers is Warrick Sony – composer, musician, experimentalist and anti-apartheid activist. Back in 1981, Kalahari Surfers began as a solo project that soon became one of the most politically radical sounds to come out of apartheid South Africa. It was also musically radical – mixing reggae, punk, electronica, hip-hop and avant-garde rock. Sony brings his psychedelic sound to the UK as the African Soul Rebels take in 12 dates in Poole, Brighton, London, Northampton, Bristol, Basingstoke, Coventry, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leicester and Gateshead.
www.musicbeyondmainstream.org.uk
