BELLA GAFFNEY & POLLY BOLTON Bella is no stranger to the club having started her acoustic career several years ago at Bradford’s Topic Folk Club. She then came to Nottingham University for her degree where she formed her backing trio, Bric-a-Brac, two of whom Chris and Caitlin were recent guests in May. She writes folk inspired songs which she performs with her own arrangements of traditional pieces and won the Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections last year. She moved to York after jamming with the accomplished mandolin player, Polly Bolton in autumn 2017 and a great musical collaboration began leading to festival bookings both as a duo and a group called Bella, Polly and the Magpies. The organiser at Cambridge Folk Festival said they were “well- liked by the punters, a proper hit” which we can endorse from their performance last month in the main marquee at Warwick Folk Festival. Admission is only £4 for members and £6 for non members

Marc shared a guest spot at our club in January 2017 with Tina Taylor. At that time he was making regular solo appearances on the Nottingham folk and roots scene and also fronting a Trio called ‘The Breezes’. He has recently described himself as a “rootsy Radical Faerie singer of original and traditional songs in the folk idiom”. For about 5 years Marc was regular driver and accompanist to Roy Bailey up to Roy’s death last November, but since then has a new collaboration with a “wizard accordionist” called Simon Dumpleton from South Yorkshire. Marc has a lot of new material to perform, since he is close to completing a crowd-funder for his third album, following ‘Brisk & Breezy’ in 2016 and ‘The Hawthorn Spring’ in 2013. Wednesday 17 July should be a brilliant night!

The Shackleton Trio will be our next guests appearing on Wednesday 19 June. They play an exciting blend of folk, Americana and self-penned material. Georgia Shackleton writes and performs “wordy songs about other people”, accompanying herself on the fiddle, influenced by her strong roots on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk. The other members of the trio are Aaren Bennett, a powerful guitar player and mandolin ace and Nic Zuppardi, who brings influences from American and Scandinavian folk traditions. They have toured Belgium and the Netherlands as well as the UK and have appeared at Cambridge Folk Festival main stage, Folk East and Towersey Folk Festival. Their latest trio CD called “Fen, Farm and Deadly Water” has won a lot of bookings in the last year. Come and see this trio on Wednesday 19 June from 8.30 pm.

Chris Elliott and Caitlin Jones are additional guests appearing on Wednesday 29 May. We have had them before as half of Bric-a Brac and as a duo they perform a good mix of traditional and original songs and tunes. Chris plays guitar, bouzuki and fiddle whilst Caitlin plays whistle or flute and sings. They both have day jobs as teachers but have found time to produce their first duo CD called “Carry Me Home” which has helped them to a main stage slot at Shrewsbury Folk Festival at the end of August. Come and see this young duo on Wednesday 29 May from 8.30 pm.

Quiet Loner, known to the authorities as Matt Hill, is a songwriter, singer, and guitarist originally from Eastwood, now living in the Dark Peak. His most recent album, “The Battle for the Ballot: songs and stories from the fight for the right to vote”, is the result of a year spent as songwriter-in-residence at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. His previous three albums weave deftly between English folk and Americana, and between the political and the personal. He was one of the five founders of We Shall Overcome in 2015 and was so popular when he played at our charity event last October, with songs he’d written about local characters and places that we asked him back. More on http://www.quietloner.com/about/