SIDMOUTH Folk Festival returns this year, from Friday 2nd to Friday 9th August – for the 70th anniversary, making it one of the world’s longest established celebration of traditional folk music and dance.
Sidmouth has been at the heart of the English – and British, European and world – folk scene, championing traditional music, dance and song.
The festival’s origins date back to July 1955, when the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS), on Eileen Phelan’s suggestion, decided that Sidmouth was a perfect addition to their existing and established folk dance festival in Stratford, offering the added attractions of the seaside and the Devon countryside.
Over the following decades, the festival, spread in marquees and venues around this picturesque East Devon seaside town, attracted dance sides and traditional and contemporary folk performers from all over the world. Since the pandemic, the festival has rebuilt its programme and this year will see it continuing its reputation for creating an inclusive music community that celebrates tradition and the rich diversity of folk arts from the grassroots to the cutting edge.
The programme once again ranges from top folk stars to emerging talent, ceilidhs, Morris and folk dances, storytelling, a children’s festival, youth and other participatory sessions and workshops and much more.
The big names this year include Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham (pictured), Blowzabella, Blazin’ Fiddles, Karine Polwart, Kate Rusby, Oysterband, Ralph McTell, the Rheingans Sisters, Sea Song Sessions, Spooky Men’s Chorale (pictured), Fay Heild, and Catrin Finch and Aoife Ni Bhriain (and many more).
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Celebrating Sabine
One of this year’s special events – coming to Sidmouth as part of a lengthy tour – is a celebration in music, song and words of the centenary of the historian and folklorist Sabine Baring-Gould with musicians, six-time BBC Folk Award nominee Jim Causley and Miranda Sykes, of Daphne’s Flight and Show of Hands, with narrator John Palmer.
Ghosts, Werewolves and Countryfolk – Songs and Stories of Sabine Baring Gould will explore Baring-Gould’s life and writing through the folk songs that meant so much to him. The Devon-based Victorian polymath, who is now largely overlooked, was a pioneer of folk song collecting – inspiring Cecil Sharp to follow in his footsteps. He was a best-selling-novelist of the period and composed the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers, with a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
But his work on the West Country folk music tradition was perhaps most important to him. He wrote: “To this day I consider that the recovery of our West Country melodies has been the principal achievement of my life.”
Local dates on the tour include the David Hall at South Petherton on Saturday 20th July, Sidmouth Folk Festival on Saturday 3rd August, Beautiful Days at Ottery St Mary on 16th to 18th August, Lyme Folk Weekend on Sunday 25th August, the Plough Arts Centre at Great Torrington on 26th September, Pound Arts at Corsham on 28th September, and Bristol Folk House on 20th October.
A Small Quiet English Town
As Sidmouth prepares for the folk festival, a documentary about the town and its long relationship with folk music has just been released, with screenings at Honiton’s Beehive Centre on 26th July, at 2pm and 7pm.
A Small Quiet English Town – A Sidmouth Folk Story, by TPL Films, is a journey through the long history of the festival, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
The producers used previously unseen film and photographs donated through archive collections or found in attics, sheds and even rubbish skips, after decades of neglect to tell the story of what is said to be Europe’s longest running folk festival,
With interviews, performances and memories from festivals going back decades, it tells the story of how Sidmouth Folk Week became the highpoint in the English Folk calendar.
Among legendary and contemporary folk stars featured in the film are Ralph McTell (Streets of London), Steve Knightley of Show of Hands, India Electric Company, Lori Campbell, Edgelarks and The Oysterband.
Pictured: Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, a still from A Small Quiet English Town, and Jim Causley, Miranda Sykes and John Palmer.