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 Chairman (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
Monday 20 September 2021
This week’s music
- The Rout Of The Blues / Robin & Barry Dransfield
- Finavarra Reverie / Sean Lyons
- Flowers Of The Forest / The McCalmans
- Bonny May / Serious Sam Barrett
- Walking To The Shore / Duotone 4:31
- Chasing The Sun / The Sweet Lowdown
- Oak, Ash And Thorn / Peter Bellamy
- Farewell, My Own Dear Native Land / Michael Gorman, Margaret Barry
- Hot Asphalt / Bob Davenport & The Rakes
- No Telling / Linda Thompson
- Sunday Morning, St. Denis / Roy Bailey
- Northern Sky / Nick Drake
- Song Of The Lower Classes / Sound Tradition
- We Poor Labouring Men / Waterson:Carthy
- Devil's Arch / Granny's Attic
- The Wind That Shakes the Barley / Martin Carthy with Dave Swarbrick
- Lonely Waterloo / Sylvia Barnes
- Emily Davison / Sandra Kerr
- Leaving London / Tom Paxton
- The Bridge / Dan and Claudia Zanes
- Jigs: The Rock on the Clyde/Paidin O Raifeartaigh / Aerialists
- My Boy Jack/Widowmaker / Debra Cowan
- Rambleaway / Albion Band
- The Dalesman's Litany / Jack Rutter
- The Handsome Cabin Boy / Sweeney's Men
- Algoma Steel Fires / Kathy Stewart
- Erin go Bragh / Dougie Mackenzie
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.
