Classic Folk with Mike Norris
Classic Folk is unique.
It mines a rich seam of wonderful folk and roots music and song from around 75 years of recordings.
From the great source singers to the legends of folk rock, the travellers to the protesters, the ballads to the blues, from the far north to the deep south and all around the English speaking world, the songs live again.
And, not forgetting the pick of the new releases and a few cracking tunes, it’s like having a folk festival in the comfort of your own home!
Former English Folk Dance and Song Society Chair (2006–2011) and long-standing member Mike Norris hosts our weekly folk radio programme.
Mike explores a wide range of folk and acoustic music from the UK and abroad – from rarely heard archive and field recordings to the very latest releases.
Listen now
Tuesday 23 April 2024
This week’s music:
- Beach Road / Johnny Dickinson
- Yellowstone (The St Buryan Sessions) / Sarah McQuaid
- The Bonny Boy (The Trees They Do Grow High) / Pentangle
- What Will We Do When We Have No Money / Seb Stone
- Wild Goose / Harbottle & Jonas
- Nemisia - Summer Breeze / Becky Price And Friends
- A Blacksmith Courted Me / Naomi Bedford And Paul Simmonds
- The English Samurai / Jack Badcock
- Le reel de Pointe-au-Pic / La Bottine Souriante
- The Diggers Song / Chumbawamba
- Song Of The Leaders / Roy Bailey
- Liberty Song / The Levellers
- The Wild Colonial Boy / Nancy Kerr & James Fagan
- Botany Bay / Bill Jones
- Australia / Chris Foster
- The Banks of the Dee / Louis Killen
- Fine Horseman / Lucky Bags
- The Deserter / Simon Nicol
- The Dark Island / Alan Bell
- The Island / Ruth Notman & Sam Kelly
- Skye Tunes / Doug Lamey
- The Briar And The Rose / Niamh Parsons
- The Lapwing's Call / Naomi Bedford And Paul Simmonds
- The Cuckoo / Bity Booker
- Where the Mulcair River Flows / The Ciderhouse Rebellion with Molly Donnery
- The Lass of Richmond Hill / Banter
- WOL*D / Harry Chapin
The presenter: Mike Norris
Mike’s passion for folk music spans decades; from first learning to play the melodeon and singing shanties at school, to running folk festivals and gigs.
A teenager during the 1960s, Mike was heavily influenced by protest song and folk-rock popularity (Bob Dylan, the Copper Family, Joan Baez, Fairport Convention etc), as well as the tail end of the folk-song revival shaped by The Watersons, Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Shirley Collins, Woody Guthrie and many more.
Interesting fact: The hospital where Mike was born, in Portsmouth, grew out of the workhouse where George Gardiner collected more than 100 songs in the early 1900s.