As folk music enjoys its latest renaissance with younger audiences, Lighthouse Poole has found itself a focal point of local interest with music fans seeking out new sounds as emerging and established artists alike reach out to new audiences.
“Gen Z is finding there’s a lot more to folk music in its broadest sense than fiddles, foot-stomping and fingers in the ear,” explains Lighthouse music programmer John Blakeley.
“In an age when mainstream pop songs are written by AI, mixed by computer software and streamed online, some music fans are gravitating towards something more authentic and making new cultural connections.”
The new converts may be finding it through TikTok and streamed playlists, but it’s leading them back to local folk clubs and festivals as well as touring venues like Lighthouse where they find established folk audiences welcome them with open arms.
“Everyone finds their own way into it,” adds John, “and folk music has ebbed and flowed in and out of fashion ever since the early rock ‘n’ rollers created skiffle music in the 1950s. There’s folk music for everyone – it’s a very broad church.”
Folk-leaning music highlights at Lighthouse include:
Spafford Campbell, 19 September. Signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, Owen Spafford and Louis Campbell have won rave reviews for their new album, Tomorrow Held, with its bravura noirish mix of folk, jazz, post-rock and chamber classical music.
Fisherman’s Friends, 5 October. Sold out show from the legendary sea shanty band.
Martin Simpson, 15 October. Quite simply, one of England’s most revered folk performers, widely acknowledged as among the finest acoustic and slide guitar players in the world.
Simon & Oscar: The Songs of Ocean Colour Scene, 18 October. Not strictly folk music, but there’s no denying its influence over the all-conquering Britpop legends as singer Simon Fowler and drummer Oscar Harrison dip into their very deep songbook.
Scott Matthews, 23 October. Again, not an out-and-out folk artist, but Ivor Novello Award-winning singer songwriter Scott Matthews draws on its influence alongside soul, jazz, electronica and a world of roots music.
Steve Knightley & Winter Yards Band, 31 October. The multi-award-winning English singer songwriter and founding member of legendary folk duo Show of Hands, returns to Poole with his dynamic new four-piece band to showcase his widely praised album, Winter Yards.
Ellie Gowers, 7 November. The all-singing, all-dancing folk polymath makes her Poole debut as she follows her celebrated debut album, Dwelling by the Weir, with new songs that reference the more contemporary sounds of Mipso, Gemma Hayes, and Jeff Buckley.
Moscow Drug Club, 16 December. Lighthouse (and local folk festival) regulars, these transcendent troubadours of world jazz and folk conjure images of staggering through eastern European cobbled streets and stumbling into a bar where Django Reinhardt and Tom Waits are having an after-hours jam with the locals…
Hedera (pictured), 17 January. A welcome return for the Bristol-based quintet whose (mostly) instrumental sounds lean into the slower and more delicate side of European folk traditions.
Daoiri Farrell, 28 March. A product of Dublin’s famous club An Góilin Traditional Singers, since launching his own solo live career at the 2016 Celtic Connections, Daoirí Farrell has gone from strength to strength and is hailed as one of the most important traditional singers to have emerged in the last decade.
For tickets and additional information, please visit What’s On – Lighthouse.
(NC)