Cultural Dessert

The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008

6 February 2008

On Monday evening I was the guest of Steve Heap and Folk Arts England at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008 in London. It was brilliant! I could tell it was going to be an exciting occasion from the moment I walked into the reception at The Brewery. Scanning the crowd for someone I knew I came face to face with a very familiar figure: just before I started to say "where do I know you from" I realised it was Bob Hoskins! The room was full of famous people (and me!) - from the aristocracy of the folk world (including the likes of Martin Carthy, Maddy Prior and Shirley Collins) to Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson, Aled Jones, Alexei Sayle and Romeo Stodart from The Magic Numbers (reviewed here in July 2007). At one point I was standing between Kate Rusby (reviewed here in June 2006) and Eliza Carthy. Just as I was thinking I knew everyone but no-one knew me I was approached by someone who recognised me from the recent VAN Trustees event in Birmingham. When the show started the A-list celebrity count continued to escalate with awards being presented by Sean Bean, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Steve Harley, Graham Coxon from Blur, Brenda Blethyn and Phil Collins. But the fun of celebrity-spotting was quite properly eclipsed by the music. Steve Heap was delighted to see family friend (and no relation) Martin Simpson pick up the awards for best original song and album of the year and Martin's performance (with Kate Rusby on backing vocals) was a highlight. There were also performances by The Imagined Village (who I saw at WOMAD - reviewed here in August 2007), Seth Lakeman (reviewed here in April 2006 and August 2007), Rachel Unthank and The Winterset and John Martyn who received the lifetime achievement award. But my favourites were the electrifying Lau who brought the house down (and won the best group award) and the completely gorgeous Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis (reviewed here in February 2006 and April 2007) who was named folk singer of the year. It was wonderful to hear John Spiers (collecting the best live act award on behalf of Bellowhead - reviewed here in October 2006) using his acceptance speech to stress that the best thing about folk music is that anyone can do it and encouraging everyone to have a go. The show was very slickly compered by Mike Harding. You can find more details, video clips and listen again to the Radio 2 broadcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/events/folkawards2008/ I had a wonderful time - many thanks Steve.

Labels: Concerts, Music

posted by Robin Simpson @ 11:26 am