Classic Folk with Mike Norris
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 3 May 2021
This week’s music
1. The Sweet Month Of May / John Kirkpatrick
2. Sound Of Singing / Tom & Barbara Brown
3. Spring Song / Alan Bell
4. The Reckoning / Steve Tilston
5. Searching for Lambs / John Jones
6. Pastime With Good Company / Gryphon
7. When rosy May comes in wi' flowers / Tony Cuffe
8. Diamond Day / Vashti Bunyan
9. Song for Busking Ronnie/The Remember Me Hornpipe / Kathryn Tickell & Rory McLeod
10. May Song / Waterson:Carthy
11. The Bonny Labouring Boy / Emily Smith
12. Far O'er The Blue Waters / Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley
13. My Son John / The Imagined Village
14. Soldier Boy / Capercaillie
15. Universal Soldier / Donovan
16. Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down / Rory Block
17. West Virginia Mine Disaster / Kathy Mattea
18. End Of A Dream / Eric Weissberg
19. Chanson A La Mariee / Liliana Bertolo, Evelyne Girardon, Sandra Kerr
20. Another Valley / Alison McMorland & Geordie McIntyre
21. Happy Ever After / Julia Fordham
22. Fair And Tender Ladies / Cherish The Ladies
23. Da Fields O'Foula/My Love Is a Fair Lad / Tarras
24. Pleasant Month Of May / Jane And Amanda Threlfall
25. Hail, Hail the First of May / Jon Boden
26. Derbyshire May Song / Keith Kendrick
27. May to Midsummer / Issy and David Emeny with Kate Riaz
28. As I Roved Out / Ewan McLennan
29. Rolling Hills of The Borders / The McCalmans
30. Solo Jig: Humours Of Ballyloughlin / Planxty
31. The Galway Races / The Dubliners
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.
