About Chris Manners
Chris Manners is a song-maker, singer and guitarist who’s been knocking around the folk scene for years, mainly in Yorkshire but also for appreciable times in Manchester, Oxford, London and Essex. He’s a resident with Ryburn 3 Step and the Ryburn folk club in Ripponden, and you’ll also catch him at venues around Airedale, Calderdale and Wharfedale.
New album – Exit Pursued by a Bear
The long-time-coming third album, firmly rooted in the English folk tradition, filtered through a mash-up of other influences: Nic Jones, Spike Jones, Jake Thackray, Bruce Springsteen, and John Chibadura & The Tembo Brothers.
Lyrically it’s a sharp but affectionate dissection of . . . well, everything, really. From Napoleon’s exile on Elba to choosing the right colour for the kitchen wall; from the decline of tradition industry to the horrors of war and the disappointments of middle age. It even includes a couple of love songs, one of them with fleas.
Latest From the Blog…
Bandoggs – Forgotten Favourites #7
An occasional series on buried treasure for the ears The memory haunts me still. 1979, a Friday evening, at The General Elliot in South Hinksey — a folk club that, in the few years I loitered there, foster-parented Jumpleads, Magpie Lane, The Mellstock Band, and...
Songs and Buttered Haycocks: Dave Burland — Forgotten favourites #6
Time, they say, heals all things. The sprained ankle, the broken heart, the ache of loss; they all mend with the passing years. Oh yeah? They’re wrong. One pang strikes as keen today as it ever did: that my ex-wife (who I remember fondly in all other respects) took...
Moving Hearts – Forgotten favourites #5
I do like a big band. Nothing quite like one for rousing the blood, when the brass section kicks in and the fiddles all march in time. Home Service, Eliza Carthy’s Wayward Band, Salsa Celtica, Bellowhead. And the Irish one, Moving Hearts. The Hearts came together in...