BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2012
Wot? No bread rolls to hurl at Mike Harding? No nominations for Show Of Hands OR Matthews & While as Best Duo? No Barbara Dickson presenting a prize? There’s ALWAYS nominations for Show Of Hands and Matthews & While and Barbara Dickson presenting a p...more
12/02/2012
Celtic Connections 2012
So to Glasgow then. To Celtic Connections, the annual ‘that’s Hogmanay done and dusted, what the feck are we gonna do for a knees-up now – oh sod it, let’s have a hoolie’ festival. Actually an awful lot of blood, sweat, tears and hangovers have been...more
06/02/2012
Butlins - Great British Folk Festival
Hello campers. Hope this finds you well. I’ve just had a fun weekend in Skegness. At Butlins. Hang on, I’ll run that by you again. I’ve just had a fun weekend in Skegness. At Butlins. And that’s not something I thought I’d ever have cause to say sin...more
09/12/2011
What a grim year this is turning out to be…
Mike Waterson. Ray Fisher. And now Bert Jansch. Three stalwart giants of the UK folk revival. All gone. Musically worlds apart and very different characters, they nevertheless had plenty in common, not least an unwavering commitment to pursuing highl...more
10/10/2011
Is it August yet? Oh right, it must be Devon then…
My journey to Sidmouth had been long, colourful, tiring and yes, I freely admit it, occasionally squiffy. Well, there was that strange festival on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Iceland and nobody stays sober in Iceland for more than 10 minutes at ...more
10/08/2011
Bob Dylan is 70 too
As a follow up to meeting his hero Martin Carthy on the occasion of his 70th and writing a blog about it for us, colin has resorted to verse to celebrate Bob Dylan, who is also 70 this year. This is the whole of Dylans career in one wonderful poem......more
14/06/2011
Heroes
Bear with me, this might get misty-eyed… Flushed with success one day when one of my books hit the dizzy heights of No 47 in the Irish best-sellers, I gleefully plotted the blockbuster follow-up. I’d list all the heroes of my childhood and youth, tra...more
23/05/2011
Island of dreams
There are times – usually deep into the third glass of Remy while wading through a pile of CDs by some hapless anxiety-ridden singer-songwriter inflicting the grindingly tedious details of their miserable existence on the rest of the world – when I d...more
24/03/2011
Island of dreams - Part 2
And knock me down with a bodhran, that's exactly what Nadim Sadek has done. Converting one of the houses on the island into a recording studio, he engaged former U2 fixer Suzanne Doyle to assemble a bunch of top-notch musicians who descended on Inish...more
24/03/2011
BBC Folk Awards 2011
“Folk music has always been the raspberry seed in the back teeth of the establishment...” says Chris Wood in that quietly loaded way of his to a packed hall hanging on his every word. You can always rely on Chris to rise to the occasion with a pertin...more
11/02/2011
Irwin was an assistant editor of Melody Maker in the 1970s and 1980s, before leaving in the summer of 1987 as the magazine moved in a different direction, and editor of Number One magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
His book In Search of the Craic details a comic journey around Ireland seeking out pub music sessions and became a best-seller in Ireland. Subsequent books were In Search Of Albion, a similarly light-hearted journey around English traditions and rituals and Sing When You're Winning, about the history and culture of terrace songs at football matches.
He's also reviewed music for The Guardian, Mojo, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and fRoots and has been a Mercury Music Prize judge.
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