June 2021 update: when I published my football site Salutsunderland.com, this would have featured in my Ten Years After category, blasts from the past that first appeared 10 years before. I'm a few days out on this gem from Salut!... Read more →
June 2021 update: just over five years ago the wonderful musician Dave Swarbrick left us. As I explain below, I have particular reasons to remember Swarb, his battles with ill-health and the passion for music that remained with him to... Read more →
June 2021 added thoughts: hardly an update as you'll find all I have to say in this short piece and some very astute comments posted by readers when the article originally appeared earlier in the Cover Story series ... just... Read more →
Who said Brexit would bring only pain once the euphoria of establishing sovrinty innit had worn off? The folk world has joined exporters, importers, student explorers and all manner of Britons in rejoicing at news of the world-beating trade deal... Read more →
June 2021 update: there is no specific anniversary to justify reposting this item though it is half a century this year (inconveniently earlier this year) that Leonard Cohen's Joan of Arc was first released. And we're far too soon, as... Read more →
June 2021 update: back in 2017, when I first published this quick look at the outstanding Suzanne Vega song, The Queen and the Soldier, I promised to add details of the arrangement used by Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts for... Read more →
May 2021 update: Mná na H-éireann in Gaelic, Women of Ireland in English, is a thing of beauty, whether as song or tune. The idea of republishing this instalment of Cover Story, a popular and long-running series comparing different versions... Read more →
With his reminiscences on falling in love with British (and Irish) folk and folk-rock while an American serviceman stationed in London, Peter Obermark delighted followers of the Facebook Richard Thompson group, and a few more when they were reproduced here.... Read more →
