TwickFolk Birthday Concert 2024

The String Fellows - Bernie Dembowski, John Rogers Prosser, John Davies

Sue Graves
The String Fellows - Bernie Dembowski, John Rogers Prosser, John Davies
Amrit Sond
Ivor Game
Mandy Woods
Martin, Helen and Vanessa
Michael De Podesta
Paul Solman
Paul Vile

TwickFolk - The Cabbage Patch Pub, 67 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 3SZ
www.twickfolk.co.uk

21st January 2024

Paul Solman & Paul Vile

A great mix of current and vintage performers, together with the friendly and fun atmosphere that has made TwickFolk so popular for more than four decades.

Amrit Sond

Last Sunday at TwickFolk marked the final night of my year long art residency. It has an been an amazing privilege to experience such high quality performers, to hear their music and to sketch them of course. The year started with a re-brand of the TwickFolk logo and the unveiling of a new stage banner. I felt very proud to watch the performers strut their stuff in front of the banner. And it is testament to the team at TwickFolk and especially their official photographer, Riikka Gregorowski, that images of the folk musicians (and the banner) can be found all over social media.

Ivor Game

There were several highlights of the residency. First must be the quality of the floor spots. These brought both new discoveries to my attention but also an appreciation of the talent that is the TwickFolk team ranks. My favourite night of the year was the Young Folk Showcase, curated by Jennie Higgins, and featuring Sean Spicer, Seb Stone, and East Corner Trio. It's good to know that the future of British folk music is in such good hands.

Sue Graves

I'm very grateful for the Sunday night welcome I received from Sue Graves, Paul Kenny, Paul Vile, Paul Solman, Riikka and the rest of the team at TwickFolk each week. It really is a special folk club and they would not have been able to flourish for 41 years without nurturing a community around them. I feel fortunate to have been placed at the heart of this community for a year of my creative life.

Mandy Woods

Martin, Helen and Vanessa

Michael De Podesta

 

Suntrap - Twickfolk

Sue Graves - "Surrey Nightingale"

Suntrap
Sara Byers - Vocals, Guitar, Accordion, Banjo, Whistle
Mary Wilson - Vocals, Violin, Mandolin,
Sue Graves - Vocals, Guitar, Ukulele
John Sandall - Violin, Viola, Cello, Vocals
Tom Evans - Double bass, Accordion, Guitar,

TwickFolk - The Cabbage Patch Pub, 67 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 3SZ

www.twickfolk.co.uk

17th September 2023

Tom Evans 

Suntrap are a five piece English folk band, offering a unique musical experience of folk inspired original, traditional and contemporary songs, featuring entrancing vocal harmonies and lush instrumental arrangements.

Sara Byers

Sara Byers and Mary Wilson are two of the three original band members, and over the years, they have been joined by John Sandall, Sue Graves and Tom Evans.  Instruments played by the band include fiddles, viola, accordions, guitars, tenor guitar, ukuleles, banjo, double bass and whistle.

Mary Wilson

Suntrap launched their album, Northern Lights, at TwickFolk in September 2019.  Since then, they have used their lockdown time to write some new songs and to learn some carefully selected cover songs.  So a mixture of old and new music is to be expected this evening.

Quotes about the Northern Lights album:
“Suntrap manage to blur the lines between sublime music and dreams.  The lines between the fantastical and the possible are likewise blurred.  This album is pure indulgence”  Catherine Hume for Shire Folk

“Full of intelligent original songs, this comeback album is an immensely satisfying listen.  The ‘in the round’ style ensures the supple vocal harmonies are to the fore”  Keith Ames, Tom Short and Clive Somerville for The Musician.

John Sandall 

Charlie Dore - Twickfolk

Charlie Dore

Charlie Dore with Julian Littman

Floor spots
Sue Graves and Mary Wilson (Suntrap duo)
Paul Vile
Michael de Podesta

Julian Littman

TwickFolk - The Cabbage Patch Pub, 67 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 3SZ
www.twickfolk.co.uk

19th February 2023

Charlie Dore is best known as a respected songwriter, but has been performing in her own right since the 1970s. She made her first album in Nashville and London and released a single, Pilot of the Airwaves, which became a hit in the US.

Sue Graves

She became one of a handful of UK songwriters to have success across diverse genres with songs covered by George Harrison, Tina Turner, Lisa Stansfied, Ricky Ross, Sheena Easton (US No 4), Celine Dion, Black, UB40, Status Quo, Paul Carrack and a UK No 1, ‘Ain’t No Doubt’ for Jimmy Nail. Charlie’s songs have won two Ascap awards, an Ivor Novello nomination, both the Overall Grand and the Folk Prize from the International Acoustic Music Awards and in 2012 Best Album Lyrics from the Indy Acoustic Project for her album Cheapskate Lullabyes. Charlie’s recent awards include Female Vocalist Of The Year (FATEA, 2020) and Best Lyrics (US Indie Acoustic, 2021).

Paul Vile

For her 10th and most recent album Like Animals, she turns away from the expansive science and space metaphors of 2017’s Dark Matter to focus on the internal landscape of the human brain and just what makes us tick. Sewn-through with Dore’s trademark dark wit, lyricism, and distinctive melodic voice, Like Animals explores some of our most basic instincts and how we’re often hi-jacked by our emotional responses. Fear, anxiety and aggression figure but on the plus side, intense joy and love are in the mix as well. In 2021 Charlie also released her EP, The Man Who Built Christmas, on the basis that a good song isn’t just for Christmas.

Mary Wilson

Michael de Podesta

Twickfolk - 40th Anniversary Bash

Pip Collings

Pip Collings
John Davies
Sue Graves
John Prosser
Paul Vile
Bernie Dembowski
Jennie Higgins

TwickFolk - The Cabbage Patch Pub, 67 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 3SZ
www.twickfolk.co.uk

5th February 2023

Sue Graves

As TwickFolk entered a second week of 40th birthday celebrations, they brought together many of the characters who have helped nourish and sustain live music in Twickenham on Sunday nights over four decades.

John Davies

John Davies, singer-songwriter, guitarist, sax player, flautist and one-time TwickFolk MC and sound man, returned from Devon, and harmonised with former band-mate, Sue Graves. Sue, current TwickFolk stalwart and treasurer, is universally known across south-of-England folk clubs as the Surrey Songbird, and records and tours widely as a solo act and as part of the polyphonic Suntrap.

Paul Vile

John Prosser, singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjo and mandolin player and former TwickFolk treasurer, performed with TwickFolk's current sound man and longest-serving  committee member, Paul Vile.

John Prosser 

John Davies, John Prosser and Bernie Dembowski performed as the String Fellows.

Jennie Higgins

Jennie Higgins, who performed at TwickFolk last week to a packed audience, took a break from her educational role at the English Folk Dance and Song Society to entertain Twickenham folk lovers once more. This week she launched her new album Where Are All The Women?, you can buy a copy here https://jenniehiggins.bandcamp.com/album/where-are-all-the-women.

Bernie Dembowski

Suntrap - Twickfolk

Sara Byers

Suntrap
Sara Byers - Vocals, Guitar, Accordion, Banjo, Whistle
Mary Wilson - Vocals, Violin, Mandolin,
Sue Graves - Vocals, Guitar, Ukulele
John Sandall - Violin, Viola, Cello, Vocals
Tom Evans - Double bass, Accordion, Guitar, etc

Tom Evans 

Twickfolk
The Cabbage Patch Pub, 67 London Road, Twickenham, Middx. TW1 3SZ
https://www.twickfolk.co.uk/
13th March 2022

Suntrap are an English five-piece folk band specialising in a unique musical experience of folk-inspired traditional, original and contemporary songs featuring entrancing harmonies. 

Sue Graves 

Their fifth CD, Northern Lights, was released at TwickFolk on 22nd September 2019. The album captures as live a sound as possible and is be the first recording featuring Sue Graves, John Sandall and Tom Evans. We have recreated the band’s live sound by recording in the round, using a forest of microphones rather than layering up the songs in a studio.

Mary Wilson

Sara and Mary began singing together after meeting at Cecil Sharp House in 1996. The following year they made their first demo at Dave Pegg's Woodwork Studios and Suntrap have gone on to make four highly regarded CDs, the most recent of these released on Fellside Recordings. Sue, known as the ‘Surrey Nightingale’ is a stunning addition to Suntrap’s powerful vocal harmony sound. John, a virtuosic, irrepressible fiddler and Tom Evans, musical meister of everything complete the Suntrap sound.

Suntrap have played all over the UK and Europe at major folk festivals, folk clubs and art centres. The band have been privileged to open Cambridge and Warwick Folk Festivals.
http://www.suntrap.org/

John Sandall 

Maz O'Connnor at Twickfolk

Maz O'Connor with guitar

As you may know I spent a glorious 6 months as artist-in-residence at Twickfolk to help celebrate 30 years of live music at this popular venue. This was my first time back (25/05/2014), under the recommendation of  reliable talent spotter, Mike Watts, or Dr Fizzy as he is more popularly known. The talent in question was Maz O'Connor, a petite singer with both compositional and vocal skills that have been celebrated recently with a nomination for the Horizon Award in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2013.

Twickfolk is run by enthusiasts and volunteers so the welcome is always genuine and heartfelt upon arrival. I felt even more at home with the news that Sue Graves would be providing the support. An all too short brace of tunes gave us first Amos Lee's "Sweet Pea" and then 'A May carol'. She is both a real asset to Twickfolk and the folk scene itself with the clarity of her unfaltering voice.

Sue Graves

Whether it was the build up or exterior factors at play but the otherwise competent Maz O'Connor tripped over words frequently during introductions and in-between tunes. Strangely she felt exposed on stage and this was exaggerated in the dead silence of a folk club. The audience though didn't let her flounder. Of course music is their most common bond but such diverse subjects as Greek mythology and the Suffragettes movement were not beyond their oeuvre.

Maz O'Connor's most successful tune of the evening was "Greenwood side" that painted a rich picture in its combination of narrative and music. Based upon a heady mix of Pre-Raphaelites imagery and the subject matter of Lizzie Siddal, the song churned dark and rich like the Hogsmill River that runs just a few miles away. It was here that John Everett Millais painted his iconic version of Ophelia which now hangs in the Tate Gallery and remains one of our nation's favourite paintings. I hope this tune will find a place close to our hearts too.

Maz O'Connor - Shruti Box

O'Connor didn't dominate her appearance at Twickfolk but to her credit her demeanour was one of approachability over star quality. Her voice had a light purity that skated over the ice rather than cut into it with an ear-catching pirouette. Her song-writing by contrast had a strength which lasted throughout. The two songs that cut the deepest were "The Mississippi Woman" and "My Persephone", the latter had stretch and ambition that gave us a full view of our headliner's talents.

AL.