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 7 July 2026
This week’s music:
1. The Nutting Girl / The English Country Blues Band
2. Hares On The Mountain / Maz O'Connor
3. Lady Eleanor / Lindisfarne
4. Exile / Steve Knightley
5. I Live Not Where I Love / Linda Thompson
6. Bagpipers / Leveret
7. Ripon Sword Dance / Bryony Griffith & Alice Jones
8. A Bruton Farmer / The Wilderness Yet
9. In Dispraise Of Whisky/Swig Jig / Kathryn Tickell
10. Shepherd Of The Downs / The Copper Family
11. Gilderoy / Granny's Attic
12. The Grand Hornpipe / Radstock Jigge / Owen Spafford, Will Allen, Ben Filmer Sankey
13. The Road to Peter's Field / Sean Cooney, Eliza Carthy, Sam Carter, Jennifer Reid
14. Are Ye Sleepin’ Maggie / The Furrow Collective
15. Step It Out Joe / Michael McGoldrick & Tim Edey
16. Song Of The Lower Classes / Windborne
17. The Galway Shawl / Daoirí Farrell
18. The Weaver / Hannah James & Toby Kuhn
19. The Blue Tar Road / Macdara Yeates
20. The Suffolk Hero / Honey And The Bear
21. Sovay / Gigspanner Big Band
22. Lowlands / Miranda Sykes & Jim Causley
23. Fallow Ground / Spiers & Boden
24. The Albino Peacock / Bonfire Radicals
25. Fragile Water / Nancy Kerr
26. The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood / Nick Hart
27. Sidmouth Days / Crows
Also available to stream:
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.
