October’s headline guest will need no introduction, as a "brilliant guitarist and songwriter who combines the observational with social comment and personal reflection", according to Songlines magazine.
Midlands-born guitarist and songwriter SAM CARTER has earned a reputation for vivid, narrative- driven songwriting and captivating live performances. He is a highly-regarded instrumentalist, renowned by many as "the finest English-style fingerpicking guitarist of his generation" (Jon Boden). Over the past fifteen years, Sam has toured the world, won a BBC Folk Award and made appearances on national TV, including a spellbinding performance on Later... with Jools Holland. Sam has recorded and performed with some of folk’s leading lights, including Richard Thompson, Eliza Carthy, Martin Simpson and Nancy Kerr.
When Sam envisioned his fourth album Home Waters as "a search for a sense of belonging and stability in unfamiliar territory”, he couldn't have known how prescient that would turn out to be. Recorded pre-pandemic in a converted church in rural Northumberland by producer and multi- instrumentalist Ian Stephenson (Kan, Baltic Crossing, Andy May Trio), Sam’s live acoustic guitar and vocals sit at the heart of the album. Many of his performances were left unadorned, while Stephenson’s cinematic string arrangements created the rich emotional landscapes on other tracks. Released during lockdown in May 2020, Home Waters brought solace to many and was heralded as "an album full of quiet pleasures by a musician at the top of his game" (R2 Magazine).
Sam will be joined on the bill by FLO PARKER BOMBOSCH, who will get the evening underway with a short set. Flo is a singer/songwriter, coming from punk rock college bands and folk harmony-focused duets, Flo now mainly plays her own brand of indie folk music, influenced by the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and The Frames.
Tickets for the event, which takes place at CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 15th October 2021, are available from MELANIE'S KITCHEN in Downend or online HERE. They are priced at £15 each and must be purchased in advance. There will be a bar, stocking cider, soft drinks, wine, hot drinks and locally- brewed real ale from Hambrook-based GREAT WESTERN BREWING CO. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own glass/mug/tankard/bucket, as well as reusable bottles for water, as part of our drive to be more environmentally aware. There is now a 50p discount for those bringing their own receptacles. Please also note that seating at this event is unreserved.
There are 100 tickets available for the moment but the club hope to be able to make more available soon. But book now to avoid disappointment! For further information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
If there's one bird that folklore is full of it's the Magpie. A bringer of good news in Korea, a symbol of happiness in China and the favoured transport for witches in Germany. They are supposed to have a drop of the devil's blood on their tongues and are steeped in magic and intelligence. Some even believe that they are messengers from a higher power.
After tonight you'd be pretty sure that THE MAGPIES are all of this. And plenty more.
The Magpies are Bella Gaffney on guitar, banjo, sunburnt vocals and dry Yorkshire wit (as if there’s any other kind), Kate Griffin on clawhammer banjo player and the owner of a serious voice and acclaimed fiddle-player and effortless tune-writer Holly Brandon. There's no thievery here, nothing to fear nor any hint of bad luck. Instead we get transatlantic folk of the very highest order.
Whilst it still all feels a little bit weird to be watching a live band again, The Magpies have, pretty obviously, been on tour for much of the last few weeks. They are assured, confident in their glorious musicianship and absolutely sure of songs that have a gilded pop edge. Dispensed with early in the first set the new single, I Will Never Marry, is a case in point. Kate Griffin's wonderful vocal drives a fantastic song that recalls the best of US Bluegrass superstars Nickel Creek. She pulls off the same trick a bit later with If Time Were Money. Her vocals are beautifully yearning, powerfully expressive and when all three voices harmonise, it's heavenly.
Those three voices come together over and over through the evening, lifting songs to a completely different level. The a capella harmonising at the end of No More Tears makes a good song great, makes a lovely vocal incredible. It's not just the harmonising that's perfect though. The set of tunes, Foss Island, is tremendous. It might be named after a retail park in York but it's still sea spray drizzled, a lighthouse of a tune.
In that parallel universe where some of us live, new song Galileo would be a staple of Radio 2. It would shove all that boring pseudo American folk to one side and demand to be hummed across the nation. As it was, a hundred people in a church in Downend loved it instead. Banjo driven stomper Now and Then would feel equally at home on the airwaves, inducing proper whoops and hollers.
The second set of the evening was peppered with old-timey American songs. They waltzed to a guitar and banjo accompaniment. Tunes fizzed and zoomed; banjo, fiddle and guitar whirling dizzy two steps. It reached a crescendo with a set of off-kilter dance tunes, virtually guaranteed to get your legs in a right old tangle.
Then, just as if it couldn't get any better, The Magpies encore with a storming version of The Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams. More harmonies, more fiddle, more banjo. Cue wild applause.
For the first time since all of this lockdown stuff ended Downend Folk Club welcomed back a support act too. MAAIKE SIEGERIST is a Dutch singer songwriter (via Bristol, of course) with a capital S and capital W. Literate, clever songs packed with imagery made up her five song set. She has a glorious voice, perfectly suited to a bit of quality indie folk.
The playground rhyme would have us believe that you need two Magpies for joy. This evening proved that three Magpies will do an even better job. Three are utterly joyous - we salute you.
Words: Gavin McNamara
Photo: Barry Savell
Our Autumn/Winter programme kicks off on Friday 17th September with a visit from THE MAGPIES. It has only been a short space of time since the trio burst onto the UK folk scene, but they have already made a huge impression with their fresh brand of transatlantic neo-folk and have been "making waves wherever they play", according to Phil Beer, of Show of Hands.
Three accomplished musicians in their own right, The Magpies is a combination far greater than the sum of its parts. Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Award winning guitarist, banjo-player and singer Bella Gaffney, clawhammer banjo player and singer Kate Griffin and acclaimed fiddle-player and tunesmith Holly Brandon draw on their wide-ranging influences to create a unique blend of transatlantic folk.
In their live performances The Magpies have been exceptionally well-received. 2018 saw them perform at festivals such as Cambridge Folk Festival and on main stages at Wickham Festival, Towersey Festival and Deer Shed Festival. 2019 saw their first international shows, with performances at Folk Alliance International in Montreal, a successful tour in Ireland and performances at Costa del Folk in Portugal. And the summer saw many more festival performances including Glastonbury, Larmer Tree, Warwick and Shambala.
Their debut album Tidings was released in June 2020 to critical acclaim: "effervescent" (The Sunday Times), "folk with finesse" (The Daily Mail), "check that album out" (BBC Radio 2). A rich and varied showcase of the live show, the album draws on a range of influences and delivers a sound that can only be described as contemporary. The album is full of songs which explore uniquely female experiences in unpredictable and surprising ways, bringing a fresh voice to the current milieu.
We're also pleased to be re-introducing support acts to our evenings, and opening for The Magpies will be Bristol-based Dutch singer-songwriter MAAIKE SIEGERIST, who will perform a short five-song set.
After attending a songwriting retreat in Scotland, Maaike left her life in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam behind to study music in the UK. Armed with her acoustic guitar, she moved to Bath, where she recorded and self-produced her debut album Born Before the Wind. Tom Robinson selected several of its tracks for airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music, praising the closing track Keep It in the Dark for its "delicate vocal, poised production, gorgeous chord changes." Maaike moved to Bristol in 2018, and has since won the songwriting competitions of Glastonbury FM and the University of the West of England. She writes songs about places, people, love, and recently, endangered species.
Tickets for the event, which takes place at CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 17th September 2021, are available online HERE. They are priced at £15 each and must be purchased in advance. We are also pleased to be re-introducing our bar, stocking cider, soft drinks, wine, hot drinks and locally-brewed real ale from Hambrook-based GREAT WESTERN BREWING CO., The stealth-raffle will so be back, with prizes including CDs, gift boxes of beer and sweet treats. You are encouraged to bring your own glass/mug/tankard/bucket, as well as reusable bottles for water, as part of our drive to be more environmentally aware. There is now a 50p discount for those bringing their own receptacles.
There are 60 tickets available for the moment but we hope to be able to make more available soon. But book now to avoid disappointment! For further information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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