REMINDER: EFC's annual songwriting competition is on Wednesday 6 June 2018.

Deadline for entries is Monday 28 May 2018. Click here for the rules-n-regs.

NEXT EFC GIGS: April-May 2018

RYAN YOUNG & JENN BUTTERWORTH

Wednesday 25 April 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Ryan Young the emerging young fiddle player from Scotland, is one of the 'new wave' of young players bringing fresh and inventive ideas to traditional Scottish music. Ryan's fiddle playing brims with fresh melodic ideas, an uplifting rhythmic drive and great depth of dynamics and precision. His sound is very distinctive and  in any performance you will go on an adventurous and emotional journey with him. Ryan graduated with 1st class honours (Scottish Music) from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has now also completed his Master's in Music. He is a twice-BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award nominee, a Danny  Award winner and was as a finalist in BBC Radio Scotland's Young Traditional Musician 2015 and 2016. Accompanying Ryan tonight will be Jenn Butterworth (guitar).

GNOSS

Wednesday 2 May 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Gnoss is a dynamic quartet of fiddle, flute, guitar and percussion, that tackle energetic tune sets and driving folk song with a ‘maturity of ability many of a greater age will envy’ (Living Tradition). As current and former students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Graham Rorie (Fiddle & Mandolin), Aidan Moodie (Guitar & Vocals), Connor Sinclair (Flute, Whistles & Backing Vocals) and Craig Baxter (Bodhran & Stomp) have been tipped as ‘ones to watch’ by Songlines magazine for their lively, engaging and honest performances and, indeed, sold out their debut Fringe in 2017 at Acoustic Music Centre.

Forming as a duo in 2015, Gnoss (Graham and Aidan) picked up a prestigious Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections and reached the Semi-Finals of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award (2016). Since expanding to a four-piece, Gnoss have continued to impress at performances and festivals across the UK earning them a nomination for ‘Up and Coming Artist of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Music Awards for 2017.

Marking the launch of their new EP, “Brother Wind” with Danish and Scottish tours in spring 2018 the band look set to continue building their reputation as one of Scotland’s hottest young folk bands.

KEN NICOL

Wednesday 9 May 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Ken Nicol, who makes his debut visit to EFC this week, is an exceptional musician across a spectrum from blues to rock, effortlessly taking in folk, jazz, ragtime, ballads and more along the way. As a guitarist, he is a most highly rated player amongst fellow musicians and public alike while, as a singer, he is capable of evoking a wide range of emotions in his audience plus, as a songwriter he demonstrates these abilities in his clever and well-crafted songs. Ken is from Preston, Lancs but has moved around as the music has taken him including a spell in LA / USA in the 1980's. He has worked with some of the big bands of the UK folk scene including Albion Band and Steeleye (the latter for some seven or eight years).

Born in Preston UK, Ken started playing the regional club circuit where his talents were soon recognised.

In the early seventies he formed the band ‘Nicol & Marsh’s Easy Street’ with Pete Marsh, and it wasn’t long before they landed their first major record contract. They went on to produce four albums to widespread acclaim on the CBS and Polydor labels, the last one being recorded in Los Angeles which prompted Ken to make his home in the US where he played gigs as a solo acoustic performer and as lead singer and co-songwriter for the band ‘Versailles’.

Ken returned to the UK in 1989 and once again began working the club circuit as a solo performer, going on to produce the albums Living In A Spanish Town, Two Frets from the Blues, Clean Feet – No Shoes, The Bridge and more recently Thirteen Reasons, all released on his own M.V.S label.

In 1997 Ken joined The Albion Band as lead guitarist and singer, writing much of the band’s material himself and co-writing with Ashley Hutchings. They produced four albums in this time Happy Accident, Before Us Stands Yesterday, The Christmas Album and Road Movies all on Topic.

In December 2002, Ken joined Steeleye Span on their UK Reunion Tour and because to its great success his collaboration with the band continued for a further seven years. 2004 saw the release of two albums They Called Her Babylon and Winter.

His third collaboration, with the band Bloody Men, was released in 2006 and Cogs, Wheels and Lovers in 2009.

Ken continues to write, record and tour as a solo artist, as we will see this week.

WHAT THEY SAID
“Formidable and painstakingly acquired skills on both acoustic and electric guitars, a very high class player indeed. Flexible too. He seems comfortable with whatever style is tossed at him” (Martin Carthy).

“I first met Ken when we collaborated on an Ashley Hutchings song on his last album. I was amazed at Ken’s beautiful ragtime guitar style. He has such a great way of delivering a story and gently laying down the punch line. Humour, great guitar skill and the right drop of humility, and a passion for right, proper, good music.” (Ralph McTell)

“Ken Nicol is a consummate musician. A guitarist of broad scope, a sensitive singer and an intelligent writer of songs with stirring melodies. A musical paragon.” (Maddy Prior)

“It’s difficult for me to imagine a more talented all rounder than Ken; both as singer and guitarist.” (Ashley Hutchings)

“Prodigiously talented.” (Clive Pownceby - BBC Radio Two website, June 2004)

ENDA KENNY

Wednesday 16 May 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

EFC is pleased to welcome back Enda Kenny who first appeared here in 2016.

Enda is an Irish-born songwriter who has lived in Melbourne, Australia since the late 1980's. Thoughtful, descriptive stories of his adoptive homeland have struck a chord with audiences everywhere and his songs are always memorable and spiced with insightful good humour.

Proud to sing of where he now lives rather than from whence he came, Enda continues to grow his international audience with regular touring in Europe and N America.

After a decade of juggling music with a 'proper job', a return to full-time music in 2013 beckoned irresistably.  Good move - now, as a multi-award winning songwriter, Enda's recent compositions are enhanced through his quirky humour leading Colum Sands to say he Enda "The finest Irish songwriter living overseas".

"I can't tell you how much I enjoyed Enda Kenny's gigs when I worked with him in Australia. His songs are witty and insightful. On smaller stages to intimate audiences or large stages to festival audiences, he always holds the crowd in the palm of his hand. A brilliant night's entertainment" (Eleanor McEvoy).

The SQUIRREL HILLBILLIES

Wednesday 23 May 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

And, here's another welcome return visit - The Squirrel Hillbillies.

This duo from deep within Pittsburgh's urban forest, were a surprise success when they first visited us in 2016. Surprise? Well, we didn't really know what to expect. Who or what was a squirrel hillbilly? As it turned out they impressed enough to be coming back this week.

The duo return to share their eclectic mix of folk, country and blues. Rabidly social, clawingly curious, they relish interacting with diverse audiences performing at festivals, folk clubs and non-traditional venues across the US and the UK. Through a collaborative, non-linear songwriting process, Jenny Wolsk and Gary Crouth, draw from personal experiences, third-hand stories, and vivid imaginations to craft songs that are unpredictable and quirky yet widely accessible.
 
JENNY WOLSK (vocals, uke, mando, bass, percussion) grew up in Greenwich Village but was completely oblivious to the folk music scene raging just outside her front door. Instead, she listened to Casey Kasem's weekly countdowns and dabbled in musical theater, landing a starring role in an off-off-Broadway production of Heidi at the age of 10, a job that paid $12 per show, in cash. Her musical tastes matured during high school and in college she joined a co-ed a capella singing group, acquiring an ear for harmony, an interest in arranging music, and an appreciation for just how much abuse a voice can withstand before laryngitis sets in. She’s immersed herself in Americana now but she continues to derive way too much pleasure from singing along to top 40 radio with her daughters.

GARY CROUTH (vocals, guitar, uke) was born in a sleepy city in upstate New York at a time when the President was an army general and people talked seriously about bomb shelters and communists. His musical brain awoke around the 5th grade and he chose to play guitar, mainly because it looked nothing like an accordion, studying with a guitar master who recklessly drove a red Karmann Ghia and had once played with the Jackie Gleason Orchestra. Nepotism got Gary a his first gig, singing and playing banjo on a replica packet boat pulled by Belgian horses on the Erie Canal. His style is deeply rooted in the musical dirt of his past: traditional and contemporary acoustic music, early country, and sixties pop songs.

KYLE CAREY

Wednesday 30 May 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Kyle Carey’s back story is as worldly as her music. Raised by her schoolteacher parents first in the Alaskan Bush (where she heard Yup’ik Eskimo spoken as often as she heard English) and then in rural New Hampshire, Kyle studied literature in college, before travelling to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia on a Fulbright Fellowship to begin her study of the Gaelic language and its music. Carey is one of those scarce-as-hen’s-teeth Irish-Americans fluent in the language of her ancestors.

That was followed by a two-year sojourn on the Isle of Skye; there she cemented her command of the Gaelic language and fell under the tutelage of Christine Primrose, a native of nearby Lewis and one of Scotland’s most revered traditional singers. From Christine she learned the secrets of pronunciation and tone that distinguish those who sing from the deep heart of that music.

In Kyle's original self-penned material, however, she breaks new ground in her ability to make that style the pulse of a new American sort of folk music. The essence of that revolution lies in the real distinction Carey draws between Celtic Americana, ie. the well-traveled path of American musicians performing in the style of traditional Celtic music, and the Gaelic Americana that she writes and performs. Her music is innovative not only in its bone-deep feel for Celtic tradition, but in all that she is able to graft on to it by way of a personal vision as capacious as the North American continent.

The “Americana” portion of this synthesis has been plucked variously from bluegrass, gospel, and Appalachian ballads and fiddle tunes and in the lyrics from personal experience, Appalachian folktale, Dustbowl narrative, the Old and New Testaments, Greek mythology, and the rough-hewn poetry of West Virginia’s Louise McNeill. Eclectic or what!?

There may well be a well-travelled path for folk music in these transatlantic lanes, but no one has done it like Kyle Carey, to shift into reverse, to go back to the graves of her ancestors, learn the language they spoke, the songs they sang, and use this knowledge in creating a new sort of American folk music, one that continues to cross boundaries, to forge alliances.