Cellar Upstairs Folk Club
Traditional music in Central London
Monday evenings at 8.00
26 Feb: Pete Cooper plays, teaches, composes, records and writes about fiddle music, as well as singing and playing the mandolin. He's unusually fluent in different styles – English, Irish, Scottish, old-time, Swedish, and eastern European – and is a member of the great old-time band Rattle on the Stovepipe.
4 Mar: Ophelia's Willow Young female duo, fairly new to the folk scene, who sing their own material plus their own take on some traditional folk songs.
11 Mar:
Scott Gardiner
is one of Scotland’s great traditional singers, though younger than most. Brought up on a farm in Forfar, Angus, he’s been performing at concerts and festivals across the country since his schooldays, and is best known for singing the bothy ballads and songs of the north-east, though that’s not all he sings: he has a wide range of serious and comic material, including songs from elsewhere, some of them more modern. Career highlights include representing Scotland at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the USA, winning the Bothy Ballad World Championship and three nominations for Scots Singer of the Year at the BBC Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.
18 Mar: Dónal Maguire is a masterly Irish singer of traditional and other songs, and plays mandolin and tenor banjo. Originally from Drogheda, County Louth, he came to Britain as a teenager, and his interest in traditional music and song was generated by the Clancy Brothers and the Dubliners. In London, he became a resident at the famous Singers’ Club, alongside Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, John Faulkner and Sandra Kerr. He then lived in Lancashire for many years, and issued several albums to great critical acclaim, culminating in his CD Michael Davitt - the forgotten hero? and the film Chasing Michael Davitt, which received very good reviews. He’s now living back in Ireland, in County Clare.
25 Mar : John Hegley returns to his native borough (from home in neighbouring Hackney) to sing songs of his family's history, particularly of a French Folies Bergère grandmother who spent the 1920s on stage in the US and was brought to John's childhood home by a mysterious figure from that continent. His last folk club appearance was in January at the Topic in Bradford, which he hadn't been to since 1976. His last visit to the Cellar Upstairs was a little more recent.
1 & 8 Apr: closed for Easter.
15 Apr:
Pauline Vallance & Jacynth Hamill
(also known as Here and There) are a Scottish-Irish folk duo. Pauline, who hails from Ayrshire in Scotland, is a multi-talented singer, musician, harpist, flautist and songwriter. Her CDs include Golden Slumbers, a beautiful selection of soothing lullabies, and, most recently, The World's a Gift, a collection of her own songs about life and those who are important to us. It was nominated for Scottish Album of the Year and was deemed a “must-listen” by Folk London. Jacynth, originally from Coleraine, lives in Belfast and loves to tour around sharing her clear, calming voice with audiences small and large. She often adds a little dancing to proceedings. Together they can be heard on Red Winged Blackbird, the final CD of Caim, the group they previously were in; on it there are traditional Irish and Scottish songs, covers and their own compositions. Their gigs reflect this mix, whether concerts, folk clubs, care homes or conferences. Solo and harmony singing, lively or soothing instrumentals, story and dance – it’s great craic.
22 Apr:
Tyburn Road: Ian Giles and Dave Townsend, Oxfordshire-based singers and squeezeboxers of high renown, have been singing and playing together for more years than either will readily admit to. They bring to the stage a wealth of experience performing, touring and researching traditional music. With voices, concertina and melodeon, they offer a delightful repertoire of unusual songs and tunes, and their comfortable and relaxed style of presentation makes the perfect setting for their commitment to the material and their consummate musicianship. Dave is the English Concertina specialist, while Ian plays the two-row melodeon.
29 Apr: Robin Gillan’s music recalls the timeless old field recordings of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and early, commercial country recordings from the 1920s. Described as a polymath musician, he delivers songs with power and sensitivity. Equally adept at five-string banjo, fiddle, harmonica, guitar and melodeon, he draws upon the music of the British Isles and the USA, and his playing has rawness, balanced by technical ability, producing an archaic sound rarely achieved in the 21st century. His fiddle playing conjures up backwoods mountain scenes and soft, rainy pastures. He has recorded with numerous bands and artists, including folk legend Tom Paley, has won several awards for his fiddle and banjo playing and has drawn the attention of such diverse musical figures as Reg Hall, Bruce Molsky, Yehudhi Menuhin and Noel Gallagher.
6 May: Janice Burns & Jon Doran are an award-winning Anglo-Scottish duo who came together after discovering a shared love of traditional music and songs that tell vivid stories about the nature of life and our place in the world. Janice and Jon’s “clever and uncluttered musical storytelling” (Songlines) comes alive through tight vocal harmonies and sensitive interplay between mandolin, bouzouki, and guitar. Their arrangements have a spellbinding presence and an understated energy that transports their songs from the pages of books and manuscripts into the imagination of the listener.
13 May:
The Oakstone Trio came together in 2022 for a gig at Oxford Folk Weekend after years of playing together on the Oxford session scene and in folk clubs. Louis Thurman (melodeons, vocals), Mitch Keely (guitar, vocals), and Joshua Newman (fiddle, viola, vocals) pair new compositions with old tunes and solo ballads with harmony chorus songs. They combine a nuanced, improvisatory approach to tunes with energy and warmth, allowing seldom-heard melodies to escape old manuscripts and giving well-loved session tunes the space to find new directions. They’ve worked with the Bodleian Library to deliver performances and workshops, played sold-out gigs at festivals and clubs, and supported Nancy Kerr and James Fagan.
20 May:
Duck Soup As Paul Burgess once said in a review, there's eclectic – and then there's Duck Soup. The band features Dan Quinn (melodeons and vocals), Ian Kearey (dobro, bass, mandolin, etc) and Adam Bushell (marimba, mandolin, phono-fiddle and musical saw) and they perform traditional English folk songs and melodies from England, Shetland and Quebec. To the tradition, they add a hint of music hall, a dollop of groove and a soupçon of surreality and then play it all with vigour and verve.
27 May:
closed for bank holiday.
3 June:
Kate Lissauer
is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and composer from Maryland, USA, who honed her musical skills and creativity on the byways of rural West Virginia, and has lived in the UK for many years. She is a proud ambassador for the rich living tradition of songs and tunes from North American roots and the early days of country music. Kate is a multi-award-winning fiddler both in her home state and in the UK, and an excellent banjo and guitar player and singer.
10 June: Hector Christie & Chris Edwards Scots-Welsh-Cumbrian duo – Hector comes from Aberdeenshire, the great singing area of Scotland, and has also lived for years in that great ballad area, the Scottish borders. He has won various singing competitions on both sides of the border, including the prestigious Sidmouth Singer award in 1990. Chris is of Welsh-Cumbrian parentage, and is a talented multi-instrumentalist and tunesmith. He has featured in a variety of line-ups, studying and playing Scandinavian music, and living for a number of years in Ireland, where he played with many fine musicians. He returns to Ireland every year to guest with members of the well-known Heather Breeze ceili band and even occasionally with Matt Molloy in Westport.
17 June: Chris Miles & Gearaidh Matthews Chris, no stranger to the Cellar Upstairs, is a Scottish singer of traditional songs, Scottish, Irish and English. In the past she sang with her contemporaries Aileen Carr and the late Gordeanna McCulloch and Maureen Jelks as Palaver, as well as in a duo with Gordeanna, while continuing to perform solo. In recent years she has been accompanied by Gearaidh, an excellent guitarist from Drogheda in Ireland, and this will be their third time together at the club. In 2022 they toured the US for five weeks, delighting American aficionados of traditional ballads and songs. They do contemporary stuff too!
Programme May - July 2023
15 May:
Liz Simcock Liz’s songs – often autobiographical – are full of poetry and emotion with splashes of humour, and easy for audiences to relate to. In 1999 she featured on the Playpen Album of New Acoustic Music alongside Eliza Carthy, Billy Bragg, Eddi Reader and Kathryn Williams. Since then, she has gained a growing reputation as a performer and songwriter. Liz counts Richard Thompson, Clive Gregson, Boo Hewerdine and Joni Mitchell among her songwriting influences. She has made five albums.
20 May (NB Saturday): Sweet Thames: the London Folk Club Heritage Project
– performance with Ewan Wardrop This performance draws on the recently collected oral history interviews for the project run by Star Creative Heritage, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and supported by the EFDSS and nine London folk clubs. Sweet Thames has aimed to research, preserve and share the Sweet Thames heritage of London folk clubs from their origins in the 1950s, and this performance is one of the ways to interpret the findings. The evening will be slightly different from a regular club night, with residents and floor-performers in the first half, and the guest act delivered by the multi-talented Ewan Wardrop, an actor, dancer and musical comedian. Ewan has immersed himself in the 25 interview recordings and transcriptions to create this hour-long one-man show. Expect something folky, familiar, but altogether different. This is a free event, so come early to be sure of a seat (Find out more about the project at
https://starcreativeheritage.org/projects/sweet-thames).
NB This event will be held at the King & Queen, 1 Foley Street, W1W 6DL, and will be free – no entrance fee.
22 May:
Brian Peters Brian is one of the English folk scene’s great all-rounders, a highly entertaining performer, squeezebox ace and guitarist, with traditional songs and tunes from England and elsewhere, and who knows what else? His repertoire is full of variety including towering performances of the great ballads and a good few infectious choruses.
Change of venue tonight will be in the King and Queen, 1 Foley Street,W1W 6DL.
29 May: closed for bank holiday
5 June: Jeff Wesley A retired farmer from Northamptonshire, Jeff is a fine traditional singer with an excellent repertoire of songs, most of which he collected from his family, his neighbours and local farm workers. He has also been involved in the revival for most of his life, and his repertoire reflects this interest.
12 June: Jill Pidd & Doc Rowe Jill, a fine singer with a strong, distinctive voice, was a founder member of Hull's famous Rugby Hotel folk club, along with Mike Waterson, Jim Eldon and Ian Manuel. In the early 90s she toured for four years as one of the Watersons, and performed for a while with Mike and Ann Waterson as MichaelAnnJillo. Doc is Britain’s leading folklorist and oral historian, and has been filming and recording this country’s traditional events and customs for at least 60 years; he sings too.
19 June: Rattle on the Stovepipe While Rattle is probably now Britain’s best old-time band playing old American songs and tunes, Dave Arthur, Pete Cooper and Dan Stewart also perform British songs and tunes, on banjo, guitar, melodeon and mandolin, with harmonies. Shirley Collins says, “This engaging trio inspires in me the same devotion that old Virginia musicians like Wade Ward and Uncle Charlie Higgins do. There is that same sweetness, ease, subtlety and good humour, every song and tune so well understood, so deftly played and so perfectly paced.”
26 June: Ella Munro Ella was brought up in Skye, with music in all its forms all around her: in the kitchen or village hall, there was always likely to be a cèilidh whenever a few people got together. She studied clarsach, fiddle and voice at the National Centre for Excellence in Traditional Music at Plockton High School for five years, then at Glasgow University and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she gained a BEd in music. She then taught in a Glasgow high school for two years. She performs solo, playing piano and harp, as well as in a duo and with her own band
then closed until September
Resident Performers: Peta Webb & Ken Hall, Bob Wakeling, Amanda MacLean, Frankie Cleeve, Dave East & Doreen Leighter