BIOGRAPHIES OF COMING GUESTS

May 1st Claudia Gould & Ben Paley

Claudia Gould has a superb range of Appalachian ballads and songs, some accompanied by her son Ben's fiddle. Ben Paley plays traditonal fiddle music from North America, Scandinavia, the British Isles and further afield, as well as some more contemporary work.
Born in London, Ben Paley was surrounded by traditional music from the outset: his father (Tom Paley, one of the great figures of the American folk revival), mother (singer Claudia Gould) and step-father (Ron Gould, writer on jazz, country and folk music) were all enormous influences.
At 6 years old, Ben began playing the fiddle, taking formal violin lessons as well as learning traditional tunes and taking his place in the musical life of his family. When he was 9, they moved to Morganton, North Carolina, where Ben began to learn about harmony, improvisation, and playing nicely with others; and where he had the enormous privilege of studying with renowned Nashville session musician Jim Buchanan (who's played with everyone from Jim & Jesse to The Doors).
Three years later Ben and his family returned to England, and he discovered Swedish fiddle music and Punk Rock. Some years later he washed up in Brighton: hanging out at Irish sessions; busking; touring the UK, US and Europe; playing recording sessions, festivals and folk-clubs; and playing for more bands than he can possibly remember, including buskers Anton the Aardvark's Hot Knives and Cyril the Squirrel's Sock Suspenders, and the infamous death-metal-bluegrass outfit and festival favourites The Wild Turkey Brothers.
Ben has written Swedish Fiddle Music: An Anthology, which has become the standard work on the subject in English. He also found time to play and record with such people as Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman on the Fox feature film Ravenous, theatre company dreamthinkspeak, poet Murray Lachlan Young, The Levellers, The Saw Doctors and psychedelic dance-merchants Mandragora. Currently he's working in a duo with Tab Hunter; with Duck Baker and Maggie Boyle in The Expatriate Game; with poet, playwright and songwriter Nick Burbridge in McDermott's 2 Hours; with his father Tom and Joe Locker in the New Deal String Band; with old-time banjo-player and singer Sara Grey and her son, singer and guitarist Kieron Means; and in English dance band The Sussex Pistols, amongst other things.
He lives in Sussex with his beautiful wife and three beautiful children, reads science-fiction and theology, plays with computers and cooks pizza.

BAYOU SECO's roots are deep in the southwest but their branches reach far across the world.
WHAT DO WE DO?
We have collected music from older traditional American musicians for most of our lives and we have learned to play many of their tunes and songs. We have especially focused on Cajun music in SW Louisiana and, since 1980, we have learned from traditional Hispanic, Cowboy, and Tohono O'Odham musicians in New Mexico and Arizona. Both of us play fiddle and guitar and sing. Ken also plays one and three row diatonic accordions, 5-string banjo (fretless and freted), harmonica, and mandolin. We play concerts, dances (where we can teach Spanish Colonial dances fron New Mexico and other dances), Art Centers, Schools, Museums, Folk Clubs, Weddings, Wakes, State Fairs and other types of events. For more info on our background, check out the interview with us by Vic Smith.

Ken Keppeler and Jeanie McLerie, who form the heart of Bayou Seco, have been researching and playing the music of the Southwest USA - from the Mississippi to the deserts of Arizona - for twenty two years.
Respectfully drawing from these traditions and from their own ancestors, they present to the public an exciting and informative overview of Southwestern music on diatonic accordions, fiddles, guitar, mandolin, banjo and harmonica.
Jeanie McLerie has been a professional musician since 1962, performing in the US, Canada and Europe with the groups Sandy and Jeanie, The Harmony Sisters and The Delta Sisters.
In 1985, she started a school of fiddle instruction called "The Fiddling Friends", which focuses on an international repertoire of fiddle styles and music, with an emphasis on the sources of the music, including personal contact with traditional musicians.
Being from a very musical family from New Mexico, Arizona and California, Ken Keppeler, a fourth generation Southwesterner, grew up with the music of the region.
He has been a professional musician since 1972 and performed with the Hogwood String Band and with Bo Lpari and Jim Wimmer in Europe in the mid 70's before joining Jeanie in Louisiana. He is also a violin maker and, with his partner Peter White, has made over 160 instruments that are being played throughout the United States. They are the only people who make five string violins as an instrument specifically for that purpose as opposed to simply making a regular four string violin and sticking another string on it
As part of Bayou Seco's continuing effort to document traditional musicians in the Southwest, he completed a survey of cowboy music and dance for the Smithsonian Institute and has a degree from the University of New Mexico in American Studies.
Both Keppeler and McLerie have apprenticed (studied for two years of longer) with the following master musicians: Dennis McGee (perhaps the greatest Cajun fiddler), Canray Fontenot (Creole fiddler), Maurice Berzas and Alphonse 'Bois Sec' Ardoin (Cajun accordeon players), Cleofes Ortiz (traditional New Mexican violinista), Antonia Apodaca (traditional New Mexican accordionist, guitarist and singer) and Elliott Johnson (highly respected Tohono O'Odham (Papago) violinist.

Dana and Susan Robinson sing dust-on-the-boots vignettes of rural America. Dana delivers his lyrics with such poetic clarity as to take the audience along riding shotgun down the highway. Their stories reflect a deep affection for the landscape and a sense of place within it. Dana and Susan are consummate multi-instrumentalists (guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin) integrating styles from the Appalachian, Celtic, and African traditions to create a fresh and contemporary sound that is uniquely their own.
Born in Oregon in 1961, Dana was raised on a steady diet of the Beatles, Dylan, Clapton and Stones. At seventeen Dana took to hitchhiking between the western states, playing in cafés and restaurants, never staying in one place for very long. This restlessness culminated in the mid-80's with a trip to Europe to ride the trains and busk on the streets. Upon returning to America, Dana settled in Vermont where he built a cabin in the woods, and discovered both the east coast singer-songwriter scene and Appalachian mountain music. In 1994 Dana recorded his debut CD Elemental Lullabye, made an appearance at Carnegie Hall, and launched into a national touring career.
Dana and Susan met in 2002 when Sue attended a concert that Dana was giving in California. An environmental grant writer at the time, Sue had no idea what she was in for when Dana persuaded her to join him as his traveling partner. A classically trained pianist and Scottish fiddle player, Susan changed musical courses completely, launching into the mountain claw-hammer banjo, rhythm guitar playing, and harmony singing that now defines their sound.

"It was wonderful having you on staff this year. Many people spoke to Molly [Mason] and me and wrote in their evaluations about how much they appreciated your classes, your accessibility, your teaching skills...and the way you wove songs into the week with impeccable taste and timing. We agree with their assessment. Thanks for giving so much of yourself to the week." - Jay Ungar, Fiddle and Dance Camp, Ashokan, NY
Jeff Warner is past president of the Country Dance and Song Society, a past officer of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance, has been an artist for Virginia, Utah and Ohio Arts Councils and a producer of the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival. He is on the Artist Roster of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
New Hampshire organizations may present Jeff Warner through the New Hampshire Humanities Council's Humanities To Go program.
New England presenting organizations, other than New Hampshire, may seek funding for his presentations. For information please go to New England Foundation for the Arts.

For Years Carl Jones and Beverly Smith have appeared on the traditional music scene, at festivals, on record, at contests and dances, in various bands and formations, playing just about anything with strings or tossing in vocal harmonies wherever there was the oppportunity. In their recordings they bring those years of experience to the art of the duet-songs and tunes, old and new, done simply and with love.
Carl Jones toured with Norman and Nancy Blake as part of the Rising Fawn String Ensemble, playing mandolin, banjo, and fiddle. He often plays as a duo with James Bryan, and is sometimes found pickin' as part of a trio with Bruce Green and Don Pedi. Carl has been an instructor at Pinewoods, Port Townsend's Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Mars Hill Old Time Week, and the Swannanoa Gathering. His songs have been recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Rickie Simpkins, and others.
One of the most respected guitar players in old time music today, Beverly Smith is also in demand as a singer, fiddler, and dance caller. She has made numerous recordings, backing up fiddlers Bruce Molsky, Rafe Stefanini, Tara Nevins and Brad Leftwich, vocalizing with Irish musicians Mick Moloney and John Doyle, and also singing with bluegrass great Laurie Lewis. She has taught and played at many camps and folk festivals and, in addition to her collaboration with Carl, also plays with old time band The Rockinghams.

Born in Virginia, the third of four children, Judy grew up with singing from both parents and a love for music. “We sang at the table, we sang washing dishes, we sang riding in the car, they sang lullabies to us.” Informal singing went beyond the immediate family: Judy’s father called singing squares for neighborhood dances and played songs on the piano by ear; Judy’s mother made sure singing was a big part of the scout troops she led; extended family gatherings often featured evening sings.Judy’s sense of whimsy and joy of singing surely date from her earliest years.
A solid appreciation for music and singing goes back further yet. Generations of Judy’s family have attended Oberlin College where proximity to the conservatory of music ensured plenty of personal experience with good music and musicians. Though she never really knew them, Judy’s ancestors included preachers, teachers, and elocutionists; if there is a gene that predisposes one to love delivering a good story, Judy has it.
As she took her place in the folk community, Judy began researching the songs she loved and discovered the wealth of written, recorded, and personal sources for traditional songs and ballads. “I sang with friends at Scout camp, and Oberlin College, but lacked a communal setting for sharing the songs until I joined the Folklore Society of Greater Washington.” Through FSGW Judy met other folks who love the old songs. They could get excited talking about variants and sources. Her respect for traditional music was already strong, but continued to deepen as she started visiting old bookstores and the Library of Congress to learn from the many rich collections of traditional songs and ballads. Judy’s idea of a good time is to spend a Saturday night, or better yet a whole weekend with friends singing songs and ballads that have been memorized and polished. “The folk community is wide; we’ve enjoyed swaps and sing-arounds both at home and wherever we travel.”
Judy began performing professionally in the early 1990’s when people she met at song swaps began asking her to sing at their festival’s and coffeehouses. “My self confidence grew as I realized that there are a lot of people who love the songs I sing, and that I get such joy from sharing them with those people.” In England, Sara Grey introduced Judy to the British folk community at the Whitby Festival in ‘97 and David Jones at The National in ’96. When Judy decided to start touring in 1998 she did so in the UK as well as in the USA right from the start. She has quickly come to be well respected on both sides of the Atlantic as a singer and propagator of the old songs. Her joy in singing, deep respect for the tradition, and sense of humor delight her listeners.
Judy’s first full length recording of unaccompanied traditional songs and ballads, “ If You Sing Songs…” was released in 1998, followed two years later by “Far From the Lowlands”.

The Sunday Times voted Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves pop CD of the week, saying "van Eyken, at his best, encourages the songs to speak for themselves, and finds that they still have plenty to say" **** POP CD OF THE WEEK

Ian Anderson says of himself:-
My first light bulb moment came at the age of around 14 or 15 when I wandered into a school classroom in my home town of Weston-super-Mare to discover a Muddy Waters EP being played. I pestered its owner, so discovering a town coffee bar full of people who enjoyed a wide range of diverse non-pop artists like Big Joe Williams, Bob Dylan, Mose Allison, Miriam Makeba, Charlie Parker, Jesse Fuller, Jelly Roll Morton, Lord Buckley, Davey Graham and Spider John Koerner. So I became a weekend beatnik, bought a guitar and taught myself to play.
As soon as I left school I moved to Bristol, started playing in folk and blues clubs and metamorphosised into a 65 year old Mississippi bluesperson (I’ve been getting younger and more English ever since - it was only a few years ago that I discovered my great grandmother had traditional songs collected from her in 1904 by Ralph Vaughan-Williams!). I made my first EP record as part of the trio Anderson, Jones, Jackson - Bristol’s answer to Koerner, Ray & Glover.
Still full of teenage folly, I somehow managed to become a full-time musician and promptly got caught up in the tail end of the late ’60s blues boom. With the help and encouragement of people like the late great Alexis Korner and an early session for the BBC’s John Peel, I moved briefly to London: an exhausting year followed during which I did hundreds of gigs all over the UK including a tour with Mississippi Fred McDowell and recorded the LP Stereo Death Breakdown which came out on Liberty/UA as Ian Anderson’s Country Blues Band. There’s a nice nostalgia poster in the Pics section.
Back to Bristol, I released 4 subsequent solo albums in quick succession of mostly my own songs and guitar instrumentals, three for the Village Thing label (Royal York Crescent, A Vulture Is Not A Bird You Can Trust and Singer Sleeps On As Blaze Rages), before waking up to realising I wasn’t very good at it: for my second lightbulb moment I locked the master tapes away where they stay to this day. In spite of continual bizarre offers to re-issue them from Japan and the USA, they’ll only be let out when I’m too old and incontinent to be proud, or one too many bailifs come knocking at the door. During this period I played at the very first Glastonbury festival: unsurprisingly, I’ve never been asked back!
In the mid ’70s, by then relocated to Farnham in Surrey, I formed the duo Hot Vultures with Maggie Holland, getting back to roots music. We split our time throughout much of the mid-late 1970s between college gigs in the UK and touring extensively in Europe, particularly Belgium, where we lived for a while. We couldn’t get arrested on the UK folk club scene for some years (possibly because we played everything rather fast and loud, though certain stars of the later punk era used to come to our gigs!) We released 3 albums, Carrion On, The East Street Shakes and Up The Line with lots of interesting guests. There’s a best of CD Vulturama on Weekend Beatnik.
Somewhere around 1978 the folk police decided that fast and loud was just what the British folk clubs needed after all. Doing the rounds of even the most traditional clubs and festivals, we soon teamed up with English melodeon guru Rod Stradling and others to mix English & US-derived traditional musics as The English Country Blues Band, releasing 2 albums, No Rules and Home & Deranged, now compiled on a best of CD Unruly. See some grainy video of the English Country Blues Band on YouTube! Around then I also made a duet album with my old 1960s blues pal Mike Cooper for the Italian label Appaloosa, titled The Continuous Preaching Blues.
Eventually the English Country Blues Band evolved into the noisy English/world roots dance band Tiger Moth, making another two albums Tiger Moth and Howling Moth, now on a best of CD Mothballs Plus before culminating in the late ’80s world roots ensemble Orchestre Super Moth.
Tiger Moth re-formed in summer 2004 to celebrate our 20th anniversary - gigs included the first ever ceilidh at WOMAD, and the 50th anniversary Sidmouth Festival - and are ongoing, doing WOMAD again in 2006 plus The Big Chill, Towersey and more.
Most recently, I’ve played a small role in the Imagined Village project including the debut gig at Womad 2007, resurfaced with Maggie Holland & Ben Mandelson as the Hot Vultures 3 as part of Shirley Collins’ Folk Roots New Routes season at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and am now involved in some twanging & banging (CD, festivals, no less!) with old pals Ben Mandelson & Lu Edmonds as the Blue Blokes 3 in the not too distant future - watch that MySpace.
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Trouble is, I never can stop following enthusiasms into other music-connected areas. I’ve always written about music, starting with local newspapers and Blues Unlimited in the ’60s, running through Folk Review and eventually co-founding a regional mag called Southern Rag in 1979 which rapidly grew into the international roots music title fRoots and dragged me back to London where I’ve been skulking in deepest Harringay ever since. It’s what has mainly occupied my days, nights & weekends for the past two decades.
I’ve done a lot of radio work over the years, starting on local radio in Surrey, various series for BBC Radio 2, Capital Radio and the original World Routes on Jazz FM, a 10 year stint on the BBC World Service and now fRoots Radio on the web.

Adrian May, called ‘a pioneer of the ukulele revival in the UK’ by the Director of the New York Ukulele Festival, visits Lewes Folk Club at the Royal Oak on 26th June. Also the writer of love songs for the likes of ‘folk diva’ June Tabor, Adrian has been a visitor to Sussex folk clubs since the 1980s.
The songwriter, singer, guitarist, ukuleleist is now also a music critic, poet and university teacher, having written about the Arctic Monkeys for poetry magazine "PN Review" and currently writing a book about myth and creativity.
He was once a member of the festival headlining folk/ comedy group Spring Chickens and his 80s solo LP, "Anarchy In The Ukulele" had the rare distinction of having its title stolen by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, who openly acknowledge the fact!
Influenced by traditional song, music hall and pop music, the audience should expect a mix of very English songs from the sublime to the silly, which could be unaccompanied, or with guitar or, of course, ukulele.
Adrian is an energetic figure, performer and writer active in the folk clubs from the mid 1970s to the 1990s as a soloist and member of Spring Chickens. His songs have been recorded by June Tabor, Maggie Holland and others.
Adrian's music mixes folk influenced self-written songs with affectionate comic songs similar to Jake Thackray or Roaring Jelly. Adrian's song ruminate on love and the experience of aging.