COVENTRY Music Museum Curator Pete Chambers writes for the Observer.
Christmas Folk
MASSIVE thanks to folk legend Pete Willo for his super informative missive from CVFolk.
This is what’s happening in that exciting side of the musical spectrum.
Well just when you think the band Meet On The Ledge can’t get better than they already are, they hit a new level of excellence.
They performed their 30th anniversary set for CVFolk’s ‘Second Sunday’ event last month and blew everyone away with many of the classics and a few surprises.
Not least of these was their ‘encore’ set when they segued from Richard Thompson’s Meet On The Ledge to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb, pushing definitions of folk to new limits and including an Allen
Maslen guitar solo that David Gilmour would be proud of!
And with a superb warm-up set by Craig Sunderland, which included his own magnificent take on Matty Groves, the audience were spoilt beyond measure.
Look out for the new five-piece line-up of Willow and Tool Band who will also be making appearances with singer, guitarist and banjo-player Louis Adams, adding a new dimension to their sound!
As for Nuneaton Folk Club, Geoff Veasey is the guest MC this month.
And he’ll be back to raise the Studio roof as part of The Hawkesbury Trawlermen, one of the support acts for our new year guest, Rob Halligan’s Homeward Hie on January 8.
This Sunday’s music begins 7.30pm and admission is free – but please bring cash (preferably banknotes) to drop into our caddy collection and help us stay solvent!
With Christmas almost upon us, let me take this chance to announce that the Coventry Mummers’ tour of local village Christmas Plays is on the road after two years’ lockdown.
The Newbold-on-Avon play takes place on at Stoneleigh Play on Boxing Day.
Performed on roadsides, garden lawns, car parks, in a church and in a pub, these plays have been resurrected from the dark mists of time and form a wonderful part of our Christmas tradition.
If you want to enjoy the spectacle, visit the Mummers’ website at coventrymummers.org.uk/diary.html to find out more.
Whizzy getting busy
I’m totally chuffed to see Cov Rapper Whizzy at 12 in the hip hop charts with the superb rap ‘Fairytales of a Cov Kid’ (it even made an appearance in the national charts).
He recently moved me when in a podcast he said: “Big up Pete Chambers, he pushed my music in Cov to so many people, I had Island Music record label hit me up.”
Wow what amazing words, thank Whizzy.
So let’s support this major local talent.
All money from this song are going to National Autistic Society.
As Whizzy says himself: “Everyone, it’s 59p. If you can purchase it’s all going too charity let’s do this man.”
Merry Christmas to all the Coventry Observer readers.
