SPECIAL AWARDS


1: Special Award for the MOST CHALLENGING FOLK DAY of 2015

March 16th 2015


2: The UNCLE award for the BEST FRANK SINATRA COVER BY AN ARTIST CALLED BOB

• Bob Dylan for What'll I Do @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan for Melancholy Mood @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan for I'm a Fool to Want You @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan for Why Try to Change Me Now @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan The Night We Called It a Day @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan for All or Nothing at All @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29
• Bob Dylan for Autumn Leaves @ Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Oct 29

3: The COUSIN JACK award (formally known as the ONION award) for MAKING THE JUDGE CRY

• Christy Moore for Beeswing @ Acoustic Stage, Glastonbury
• Christy Moore's Audience for Viva Quinta Brigada @ Acoustic State, Glastonbury
• False Lights for Crossing the Bar @ Trowbridge Village Pump Festival
• Grace Petrie for Farewell to Welfare @ Left Field Stage, Glastonbury
• Gaz Brookfield for Be The Bigger Man @ Chapel Arts Bath 19th Feb

4: Special Award for BEST PERFORMANCE by a VOCAL, GUITAR and FIDDLE DUO

• Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick @ Trowbridge Village Pump Festival
• Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick @ St Davids, Cardiff, Sep 1
• Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick @ Colston Hall, Bristol, Sep 26

5: The Special Award for the GIG YOU WOULDN'T REALLY HAVE EXPECT THE JUDGE TO LIKE

• Motorhead @ Pyramid Stage Glastonbury 2016
• The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing @ Lousiana, Bristol, November 28th

6: The Special Award for the GIG THAT WAS MOST SPECIAL

• Tom Paxton @ St George's Bristol. 23rd May

7: The Special Award for the BEST FOLK MUSIC MOMENT OF 2015



The Red Flag - Billy Bragg @ Solidarity With Refugees 16th Sep 2015


MONTY AWARDS

Best New Version of Old Song, 

• Crossing the Bar by False Lights
• Close the Coal House Door by Blackbeard Tea Party
• The Blacksmith by Stick in the Wheel

Best New Song

• Breme Fell At Hastings by Show of Hands,

• Nye by Martyn Joseph,

• Jack Ketch — Blackbeards Tea Party,

Best Album,

New Anything by Leverett,


From Here by Stick in the Wheel


Reprobates by Blackbeards Tea Party


Salvor by False Lights



Best Gig or Set,

Donovan @ Acoustic Stage, Glastonbury

Christy Moore @ Acoustic Stage, Glastonbury

False Lights @ Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Gaz Brookfield and Hobo Jones @ Port of Call, Bristol

Jez Hellard @ Priddy Folk Festival



Overall Favourite Performer, 

2015 – Gaz Brookfield,

with thanks to

3 Daft Monkeys, Andy Cutting, Dick Gaughan, Ange Hardy, Belinda O Hooley, Bellowhead, Blair Dunlop, Bob Dylan, Bob Fox, Calico Jack, Chris Wood, Christy Moore, Dan Walsh, Dave Swarbrick, Donovan, Eliza Carthy , Firepit Collective, Fishermen’s Friends, Furrow Collective, Gaz Brookfield, Gilmore and Roberts, Hiedi Tidow, Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs, Jackie Oats , Jim Boyes, Jim Causley, Jim Moray, Leverett, Lucy Farrel, Lucy Ward, Luke Jackson, Lynched, Mad Dog Mcrea, Martin Carthy, Martin Simpson,, Martyn Joseph, , Maz O’Connor, Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Nancy Kerr, Nine Tree Stumblers, Oysterband, Ralph McTell, Roaring Trowman, Said the Maiden, Sam Carter , Sam Lee, Steeley Span, Steve Knightley, Stick in the Wheel, The Roaring Trowman, Tom Paxton, Ushti Baba

The Bristol Folk Festival, The Black Swan Folk Weekend; the Glastonbury Festival, The Trowbridge Village Pump Folk Festival, the Priddy Folk Festival, the Lichfield Folk Festival

St Georges, The Folk House, Colston Hall, Chapel Arts.







still missing Folkwaves

forget the Radio2 awards

never mind the Hugos

it's time for

The 2015 Monty Awards

for the best folk music in Bristol and the rest of the universe, as chosen by a committee of bloggers and podcasters living in my house

Monty Awards 2014

The Fourth Annual Montpelier Station Awards, affectionately known as the Montys.

Folk Music Awards chosen by a committee of bloggers and podcasters living quite near Montpelier station.

Listen to the complete podcast 

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A playlist of some of the music we are chattering about...

And the YouTube version....

Best Album of 2014

Fumes and Faith - Luke Jackson



The Hum - O'Hooley and Tidow



At Our Next Meeting - The Furrow Collective



Two White Cranes - Two White Cranes



Let the Wind Blow High or Low - Sid Goldsmith and Jimmy Aldridge



And the winner is....

Best New Song of 2014

Running Out of Time - Luke Jackson (Disqualified for winning last year)



Sister -  Luke Jackson



Summat's Brewing - O'Hooley and Tidow



Diabetes Blues - Gaz Brookfield



Giant - Heg and the Wolf Chorus



Ballad of Richard Howard - Sam Sweeney/Hugh Lupton



And the winner is....

Best New Version of Old Song 2014

Beeswing by Luke Jackson



Young Outlaw of the Hills by the Furrow Collective



The L and N Don't Stop Here Any More by Jimmy and Sid



The Grand Conversation on Napoleon by Martin and Eliza Carthy



Roll, Alabama Roll by Bellowhead




And the winner is...

Best Gig of 2014

The Roaring Trowmen at The Kingsdown Wine Vaults, Bristol

The Fire Pit Collective at The Old England, Bristol

Gaz Brookfield at the Bank, Bristol

Jim Moray at Chapel Arts Bath

And the winner is...

Onion Award for Making the Judge Cry

Show of Hands singing Cousin Jack at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Sam Sweeney for Made in the Great War

Luke Jackson singing Down to the Sea (Live You Tube Version)

Peggy Seeger singing Still Quite Early Morning at the Radio 2 Folk Awards

And the winner is... 

Special Awards

Festival Goer of the Year

Best Coffee at a Festival

Monkhouse Award for Best Album of Sinatra Covers By An Artist Named Bob

And the winners are...

Special Award For Gig That Was Most Special

Nic Jones at St Georges Bristol

Show of Hands at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Blackbeard's Tea Party at Avalon Stage, Glastonbury

Yoko Ono at Park Stage, Glastonbury

And the winner is

Overall Favourite Performer of 2014

The winner is...

2013 Monty Awards

Here are the nominations for the 2013 Montpelier Station Award ( affectionately know as The Montys). For the third year running, a panel of judge chosen from a short list of blogger living at my house selects his favourite musical moments from the past twelve months. For the first time in their history, the awards well be announced live on the Folkbuddies Podcast.

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Best Album

None the Wiser
Chris Wood

Whip Jamboree
Blackbeard's Tea Party

Child Ballads
Anais Mitchell / Jefferson Hamer 

Crumbling Ghost II
Crumbling Ghost







Best New Song

Jackie and Murphy

Martin Simpson (Vagrants Stanzas CD)

Running Out of Time
Luke Jackson (live at Trinity Folk Festival)

None the Wiser
Chris Wood

Silbury Hill
Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin (various)







Best Version of Old Song 

Matty Groves
Phil Cerney (live at the York Black Swan folk festival)

Lily Marlene
June Tabor (live at St Georges Bristol)

Riddles Wisely Expounded
Anais Mitchell  (Child Ballads CD)

North Country Blues
Martin Simpson (Vagrant Stanzas CD and live at Chapel Arts Bath)

Best Gig or Set

Jim Moray
Folk by the Oak Folk Festival

Luke Jackson
Trinity Folk Festival

Firepit Collective
Priddy Folk Festival

Martyn Joseph
Trowbridge Folk Festival and/or Colston Hall

Favourite Non-Farm Based Festival

Priddy Folk Festival

Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Trinity Folk Festival Guildford

Black Swan Folk Weekend York 

SPECIAL AWARDS



Special Award for the Gig That Was Most Special

Bright Phoebus Revisited

Colston Hall

Full English

Colston Hall

Jim Moray and Eliza Carthy
Colston Hall

Ewan McLennan 

Three Sugar Loaves, Bristol






Best Live Performance by an Artist Named Bob

Bob Dylan
Albert Hall London

Onion Award for Making the Judge Cry

Jake Thackray
The Remembrance sung by John Teesdale at the Black Swan, York

Jake Thackray
Remember Bethlehem sung by Notte Bene Choir at St Nicholas Church Bristol

Martyn Joseph
Five Sisters at Trowbridge Folk Festival & Colston Hall

Show of Hands
Cousin Jack at  Colston Hall







Singer Whose Name We Most Often Mispronounce

Karine Polwart

Katriona Gilmore

June Tabor

Dick Gaughan






Instrument We Most Often Mistake For a Cello

Double Bass

Jews Harp

Ukulele

Accordion






Most Woody Guthrie

Andy Irvine

Billy Bragg

Martyn Joseph

Most Crowd

Two people
Ewan McClennan at Three Sugar Loaves

Fifty People

Chris Wood at St Georges Bristol

Two hundred and fifty thousand people

The Rolling Stones in a field in  Somerset






Most Unique Act

Richard Dawson

The Spooky Men's Chorale

Crumbling Ghost

Highlight of the Year

Ruins On the Shore 

Nic Jones at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Now 
Nic Jones at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Little Pot Stove Nic Jones at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Overhearing the Sound check

Nic Jones at Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Fumes and Faith

Luke Jackson
Pipe Records

What a difference a year makes. Luke Jackson’s first album, More Than Boys, ended with some lads on their way home from a fishing trip singing “Oh me, oh my, where’s our worry?” This, his second, opens with a murderer asking “Hey there sister, please can you tell me why the sun never seems to shine when I step outside?” The first album was unadorned, Luke’s voice and Luke’s guitar; this one has some bass and some backing and some hand clapping and some finger snapping. The first album was a sunny day coming to an end; this one is encroaching night. The endless folksy summer has turned all dark and bluesy. There’s an awful lot of rain.

More Than Boys was rooted in the specifics of times and places — housing estates and parks that I assume the singer could point out to you. There are hardly any place-names on Fumes and Faith. It’s populated by shadowy figures who you can’t quite see. We take it for granted that the youth who used to ride his bike down the big hill is simply the singer himself; but who is the man in Sister who "took a man's life, saw him take his last breath?" Come to that, who’s the woman who "saw Moses part the sea" and "pulled Jonah from the belly of the whale"? Luke Jackson’s actual sister? A "sister" in the sense of a nun? Some kind of goddess figure? ("The one who has always been there is me.") My Folkbuddy would doubtless say I'm paying too much attention to the lyrics; that Luke Jackson is trying on styles, writing lines because they are the kind of lines that sound like they fit into this kind of English Americana.  And that’s true too. "Hey there sister I need to find my faith / Not to pray for me to to pray for him instead" is a stonkingly good line.

If More than Boys was a "growing up" album, maybe Fumes and Faith is a "leaving home" album? Or "trying to go home album"? Or a "being at just that point where you realise that if you stay away from home any longer you won’t ever be able to back" album? A boy looks for the mother who left him when he was very young; the criminal looks for his lost faith; a young man realises he's drifted away from a lover; a middle-aged lady wonders where her lifetime has gone; a blues singer is called home by his cross-roads ghost.  

It's less confessional than the first one. (Luke’s face is pointedly not on the cover.) It's more oblique, less direct. I've listened to the title song, what, five times, and I am still not completely sure I understand it. The "fumes" are drugs, I suppose. ("Boys are smoking green as they slowly drift away...”) But what is the faith? And is it the same faith that the murderer in Sister had lost? (Luke has been touring with Martyn Joseph, and there’s a church in the video.) Who is a saying "this is our home town and you're not welcome here my friend"? Is this a satire on small minded folk who don't like outsiders, or is it good people asking the drug dealers and porn pushers to leave them alone? But god forbid there should be a new generation of Jacksonolgists trying to intellectualize this stuff. This is music which bypasses the critical head and goes straight to the heart. When he sings out the the main hook, "We're paying our dues and doing our time..." you feel know just what he means.

It’s not what Mike Harding called "self-centred" but it's still written very firmly in Luke’s own voice. I can't think of a songwriter who has quite such a knack of taking ordinary English speech and turning it into lyrics. At one level, Charlie in the Big World is the most ordinary, down-to-earth, English thing you ever heard, a set of anecdotes about a character everyone recognises --"He told us his father planted the old conker tree / A hundred years ago today, but he's only fifty three / Well we rolled around laughing, we said he's a liar, can't you see? / He said are you taking the piss out of my daddy in me?" But Luke turns this ordinary tale into a sort of incantatory chant, with an edge of anger and self-reproach, maybe even slightly sinister, which ends taking the side of the serial fibber. “If lies are just dreams by any other name maybe they'd come true just the same?” 

Do I like it as much as I liked the first album? No, of course I don't. More Than Boys was the sort of album that hits you between the eyes the first time you hear it, makes you say “that’s so true, I’d forgotten feeling like that....” This one is much more slow burn: “Hmm...I wonder what he means by that, exactly...” Not surprisingly, my favourite song, Down To The Sea, is one which would have fitted most comfortably on the first album. It’s about drinking beer (“even though we was under age”) rather than riding bikes, but it’s still a celebration and eulogy for past friendships and it totally broke my heart (“One day it might feel right / one day we might feel the same / we'll go back down to the sea / and have days like those again.”) 

But I don't want to be That Guy who likes all Luke Jackson's songs, especially the earlier, heartbreaking ones. Fumes and Faith is a more mature, cleverer, more musically sophisticated set of songs than More than Boys, and Luke’s voice gets better all the time. And how he uses that voice... You could almost take Running Out of Time as a bleak mirror image of Down to the Sea and it’s quite extraordinary; a young man coming back to his home and finding it's changed, or he’s changed. It’s incredibly bleak; we wait in for that right-turn into hopefulness that he delivers at the end of Fathers and Sons. He seems almost to wail “I thought by coming home, maybe I'd change your mind” and there is a slight crack, the very lightest dusting of bluesy gravel in his voice. But then he half whispers “...but it seems you’ve been getting on just fine” and blows you away by singing out the refrain in that rich deep voice he uses for spirituals. There is a texture to these songs which isn’t really comparable to any other singer song-writer. When he sings “I get so damned tired with all the trying” he really honestly sounds tired. It’s only February and I suspect I've already heard the best new song of 2014. 

This is fortunately the last album about which patronising old people will be able to say "...considering he’s still a teenager...." But you do have to wonder. "I didn't know I was running out of time..."  How can songs this deep, this self-accusatory, and this world-weary be coming from a performer who hasn’t yet celebrated his twentieth birthday?



Review of Luke Jackson's first album

Folkbuddies Podcast "The Hanging Judge"
Andrew reviews the Guildford folk festival -- talks about Luke's set about 35 minutes in.

Folkbuddies Podcast: "We are not the same"
Andrew tries to persuade Clarrie that she is wrong about Luke Jackson, and everything degenerates into bickering. (Also: Highwaymen.)

Podcast 9: Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

Andrew, Clarrie and Tim the Roadie, live from an alternately hot and wet Trowbridge Village Pump Festival. Which artist made Andrew blub? Which group is Clarrie uncomfortable about liking? Did anyone understand Andrew's breakfast based joke? And how do you pronounce "chorale"?

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Podcast 8: Folk by the Oak

Clarrie is indisposed, so Andrew succeeds in bickering with himself about the one-day Folk by the Oak festival in leafy Hertfordshire. Normal service resumes next week, for sufficiently low values of "normal".

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