Chris Manners
Song-maker, singer and guitarist
Chris Manners is a Yorkshire-based singer, song-maker and guitarist who’s been honing his craft for over forty years. His work’s deeply rooted in the English folk tradition.
Find Chris on bandcamp using the button below.
New album – Bar the Doors and Bang the Shutters Down
Bar the doors and bang the shutters down, the long-promised fourth album, was released into the wild on September 1st 2024, full of sharp observation and word play combined with a take-no-prisoners delivery.
Subjects include being ice-bound with Franklin in the Arctic; gazing enviously at super yachts in Portofino harbour; being overrun by Spaniards on shore leave; or trembling in the kitchen with the lights off and the blinds drawn. It celebrates the simplest of joys: tall trees, wild garlic, and taking off your suit trousers for the very last time, with a nod to the perils and pratfalls of working from home.
No navels were scrutinised in the making of this record.
“Cracking song, characterful vocals, lovely guitar playing. What more do you need when it’s done as well as that? — Mark Radcliffe, The Folk Show, Radio 2
“In the tradition of 20th century folk club masters like John Tams and Bill Caddick” — Ian A Anderson, Podwireless
“It’s witty, it’s clever, it’s funny” — Tim Walker, Tim Walker’s Folk, BBC Radio Lincolnshire
“Clever lyrics with catchy tunes — genius . . . each and every song is amazing” — Folk Roundabout
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...