by chrismanners | 11 Jan 2025 | News
Let’s bend the rules a bit. Of course Crown of Horn is a favourite, but it’s a long way from being forgotten. It’s the record that kick-started my lifelong devotion to folk music and British finger-style guitar. Come with me, back to the musical dead zone of 1976 and...
by chrismanners | 1 Nov 2024 | News
One evening at the tail end of the 1970s I folked up at Barnsley Folk Club, upstairs in The Wheatsheaf at Town End, not knowing what to expect from the night’s guest. It was Donal, bespectacled, with an exuberant auburn beard flowing from his chin and a scarlet beret...
by chrismanners | 29 Jul 2024 | News
Bar the Doors and Bang the Shutters Down, my fourth solo album. Released September 1st 2024 Available via Bandcamp and on all major streaming platforms, in person from me and (if you absolutely must) from the retail behemoth masquerading as a South American river....
by chrismanners | 29 Jul 2024 | News
If memory serves, not so long after Eddie Walker quit his precarious day job in local government for the safe, predictable and prosperous life of a travelling musician, he chauffeured Vin Garbutt to and from folk club gigs, and begged floor spots (and bookings) each...
by chrismanners | 29 Jul 2024 | News
In the early 1970s some bright spark decided School needed new laboratories and set about finding the moolah. Term followed miserable fund-raising term full of begging letters, boot sales, money-making schemes and sponsored marathons. The one bright spot was a series...
by chrismanners | 3 Feb 2024 | News
Folk song and Tony Rose met and fell for each other at Oxford University in the early 1960s, when he was reading modern languages and taking his turn as President of the Heritage Society, the university folk club. He moved to London to teach, but was offered so many...