SpyBoy.co.uk

Folk Family Giants, from both sides of the Atlantic, Peggy Seeger, Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, Mike Waterson (14/11)

Edward II (21/11)

The Copper Family (04/12)

Eliza Carthy Band (12/12)

All shows are at the Hailsham Pavilion except The Copper Family which is at the Underground Theatre, Eastbourne, but booking for ALL shows is ONLY at the Hailsham Pavilion 01323 841414

Already booking......

John Tams & Barry Coope (27/09)

Ralph McTell (07/11)

It is difficult to pigeon-hole John Tams ....singer, songwriter, actor, musician, recording artist, music producer and he leads the way in creating new music that grows out of traditional roots.

He’s been music director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but is perhaps best known for his work at the National Theatre (from Lark Rise and The Mysteries through to the current run away success, War Horse)

He’s a former member of the Albion Band, contributed to, or produced around 50 albums, and was musical director of the acclaimed 2006 Radio Ballads.

Barry Coope, who is also part of the acapella trio Coope, Boyes & Simpson and the Waterson Carthy band Blue Murder, has worked on many projects with John over the years and his engaging vocal and keyboard skills make him a perfect partner for Tams....take a listen

They were suitably rewarded when they were voted Best Duo at last years BBC Folk Awards.

"Everybody needs a shot of R 'n B so come on down to our surgery"

Formed on Canvey Island, Essex almost forty years ago Dr Feelgood has become one of the most popular rhythm and blues bands of all time.

Their raw and uncompromising style helped to generate this popularity and to achieve a nunber one chart position with the album "Stupidity"

There was a string of hit singles, and in many countries, including "Down at the Doctors" (features the line above), "Milk & Alcohol", "Roxette" and the Dave Edmunds produced "See you later Alligator"

These days there are no original members in the line-up, but the nucleus of the current band (drummer Kevin Morris and bassist Phil Mitchell) have been there since the early eighties and spent many years alongside founder member Lee Brilleaux, who so tragically died fifteen years ago.

Guitarist Steve Walwyn joined them in the late eighties and the "new boy" is vocalist Robert Kane (pictured), who came from the reformed Animals band in 1999 and has now done over 1000 shows with Dr Feelgood, who are still regarded as one of the most exciting and dynamic live acts in the world

England’s finest acoustic roots duo, Show of Hands, embark on an extensive tour of English county towns and on Saturday 17th October visit ours here in East Sussex.

Having sold out the Royal Albert Hall three times, headlined at festivals from Glastonbury to WOMAD, supported the likes of Peter Gabriel and Jools Holland, what could be more apt for the Devon-based act described by Gabriel as “one of the great English bands”.

Although often joined by guest musicians (and you'll see Miranda Sykes and special guest Flossie Malavialle on stage at Lewes) the backbone of Show of Hands is Steve Knightley and Phil Beer, whose widespread appeal is based on the the combined power of Steve's original songs, the quality of their vocals, and Phil's multi-instrumental virtuosity......check it out

The picture to the right was taken at the last spyboy promoted Show of Hands concert in October 2008 at All Saints Church Eastbourne.

The once bad boys of folk and rock, Oysterband (specially chosen to celebrate our Ninth Birthday at the Pavilion) have grown into the role of musical custodians and godfathers of folk.

With deep roots in the English folk scene, they are one of the few groups that combine the political and lyrical fire of punk with the melody of traditional music.

Recent concerts have given us some of their best-ever vocal work....and unexpected instrumentation, with guitars, accordion, harmonica, violins and cello matched with anything from African mbira to pedal-steel guitar and marching band percussion. The songs are mostly rousing, mostly acoustic, but slicker than ever.....take a listen!

For many years prior to that date this beautiful theatre, originally built in 1921, had not been much more than a pile of rubble (see the restoration page at....Hailsham Pavilion) but as regular concertgoers will now know, this is a wonderful place to listen to live music....and artists repeatedly tell us, a wonderful place to perform......

The Vigilantes of Love, a great little band from Athens Georgia, played on that opening night and since then we have seen (and some on more than one occasion) Eric Bibb - Herbie Flowers - Kate Rusby - Paul Jones & Dave Kelly - Eliza Carthy - Alistair Hulett - Dave Swarbrick - The Bushburys - Ralph McTell - Sid Kipper - Maddy Prior - June Tabor - Cara Dillon - e2K - Oysterband - Ben Andrews - Seth Lakeman - Emily Slade - Iain Matthews - Otis Grand - Stacey Earle - Martin Carthy - The Strawbs - Helen Watson - The Albion Band - Eric Roche - Show of Hands - Peggy Seeger - St Agnes Fountain - Sugarland Slim - Fairport Convention - Kellie While - Little Johnny England - Phil Coomber - Martin Simpson - The Joyce Gang - Lindisfarne - Emily Druce & Steve Jones - Dave Sutherland - John Spiers & Jon Boden - John Tams & Barry Coope - Claire Hammill - Jim Moray - The Copper Family - Bert Jansch - Amy Wadge - Phil Beer Band - Steve Knightley - Blazin’ Fiddles - Tab Hunter & Ben Paley - Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle - Legacy - Dr Feelgood - Shirley Collins - Nancy Kerr & James Fagan - Anna Ryder - Long John Baldry - Norma & Mike Waterson - Vin Garbutt - f.n.u.k - Tommy Sands - Blackthorn Band - Los Pacaminos featuring Paul Young - Last Night’s Fun - Martyn Joseph - Feast of Fiddles - Blue Tapestry - Peter Knight & Gigspanner - Coope Boyes & Simpson - Miranda Sykes Band - The London Community Gospel Choir - Uiscedwr - The Commitments with Dave Finnegan - Wasps in the Woodshed - Ashley Hutchings' Rainbow Chasers - Climax Ceilidh Band - Chris Farlowe - Danny Smith - Albert Lee & Hogan's Heroes - Jonas Graile - Chumbawamba - All Jigged Out - Catfish Keith - Michael Roach - Demon Barber Roadshow - Michael Chapman - Midge Ure - Ella Edmondson - Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band - The Dawgs - Guy Davis - Sam Payne - Chris While & Julie Matthews - Touchstone - Leon Rosselson - Azalea - Kenny Ball - Joel White - Rag Mama Rag - Triskel - Karen Tweed - Sussex Harmony - Ric Sanders Trio - Richard Digance - Kiki Dee - The Animals - Tony Benn - Jenna Witts - Marty Wilde - The Lark Rise Band - Chris Jagger's Atcha - Bella Hardy - Karine Polwart - Megson - The Hamsters - Tim Van Eyken and The British Blues Quintet with Maggie Bell and Zoot Money

The poster images are of the first show with the Vigilantes of Love and the 2008 Christmas show with the London Community Gospel Choir

p.s. If you have not played with us during these first nine years and would like to do so sometime in the next nine! please contact us via info@spyboy.co.uk

Mention Ralph McTell and undoubtedly "Streets of London" will come into conversation...

It is one of the all-time great songs that has stood the test of time, by being recorded by over 200 artistes in three or more decades...... and written in Paris!!!!

But if you only know Ralph for Streets of London, you've missed out, for he is arguably our finest songwriter and storyteller, and has an extensive back catalogue of poignant and beautifully crafted songs

He is equally at home playing roots, rock and ragtime and is in his element playing the blues music that inspired him as a young man....

and thankfully he remembers his heroes with songs of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie featuring prominently in his unforgettable and uninterrupted two hour show

Plase note the later than usual start time

Folk Family Giants, from both sides of the Atlantic....

Peggy Seeger with Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy and Mike Waterson

Peggy Seeger ranks as one of the most important people to grace and shape the folk scene, and her brother Pete Seeger, who has just celebrated his 90th birthday, is seen as the father of the American folk revival.

Peggy first came to the UK in 1955 and a year later married Ewan MacColl, who as a token of his love for her wrote the celebrated "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", she sings the song here

They were to spend the next three decades writing, recording and performing all over the world, filling such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Milan’s Opera House and the Bolshoi Ballet Stage in Moscow.

Ewan died in 1989 and Peggy returned to the States, where she now lives close to her family.

Her concerts, only too rare in the UK, unfold a cross section of traditional songs and finely crafted contemporary pieces; songs about ecology, politics, jobs, trade unions, feminism and much, much more.

Norma Waterson along with her sister Lal, who tragically died in 1998, and her brother Mike, founded the Watersons, our most influential vocal harmony group in the early sixties.

She has one of the truest voices that contemporary folk music has ever produced, and more recently was voted Folk Artist of the Year and received universal acclaim when nominated for a Mercury Music Prize.

Mike Waterson has always been one of the great interpreters of English song, and Martin Carthy is widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists and finest singers and interpreters of traditional music in the British Isles.

Twice voted Folk Artist of the Year, he was awarded the MBE in 1998 for his services to folk music.

Together these legendary figures are responsible for shaping creating, and inspiring much of the English and North American folk music of the last 50 years.

After a 10-year absence Edward II has reformed for selected dates.......for one year only.

Throughout the 1990’s Edward II astounded festival audiences around the world with their almighty hyper-active live shows including headlining Glastonbury’s Avalon stage a record four years running.

The reunification marks the tenth anniversary of their final sell-out show at DeMontfort Hall, Leicester on 19th November 1999.

A full programme of festival appearances is planned, then just a handful of Autumn shows, of which the one at the Pavilion will be amongst the last ever.

Expect splicing dance tunes of old England with the sunny sexy grooves of reggae and lovers’ rock.

Featuring an eight-piece line up that includes melodeon and saxophone, fiddle and trombone, nestling snugly cheek-by-jowl, their repertoire strolls expansively from reworked folk standards like “Wild Mountain Thyme” to Caribbean classics like Gregory Isaacs “Night Nurse”.

They are undoubtedly one of the funkiest acts on the circuit...a self styled “mutant calypso/reggae/African style English dance band”, bringing in dashes of jazz, soul, rap, and Celtic dancing styles, all laced with Glenn Latouche’s seductively honeyed lead vocals.

Bob Copper who died five years ago at the ripe old age of 89 was England's most important traditional folk-singer and patriarch of the famed Copper Family, who have lived in Rottingdean, since the 16th century.

They have been aptly described as the backbone of the English musical tradition, and an inspiration to the 1960s generation of folk revivalists....their unique style of harmony singing is celebrated around the world.

For this special seasonal performance, Bob's son and daughter, John and Jill Copper and Jill's husband Jon Dudley (considered by all to be a Copper!) will be joined by the six grandchildren, Ben, Lucy, Thomas, Mark, Andy and Sean.

We are also delighted that Sussex Harmony (Quire) have accepted an invitation to become part of this special evening

The Quire are a group of singers and instrumentalists that perform rural English church music, often described as West Gallery Music, from the period of about 1700-1850 .

Sussex Harmony recreate the costume of rural England of about 1760. The women wear dresses with boned bodices, stomachers and full skirts. Complementing these are traditional shawls and bonnets. The men's costume represents a cross section of society, with styles ranging from the more refined jacket and waistcoat to the agricultural smock. Breeches, stockings and shoes or working boots (highlows) complete the picture

Map showing the Underground Theatre

A truly inventive and innovative singer and fiddle-player, Eliza Carthy is a gifted musical conceptualist confirming her position as arguably the most impressive and engaging performer of her generation

She has two Mercury Prize nominations, an unrivalled seven BBC Folk Awards, innumerable other accolades, and has performed and recorded with such a diverse array of artists as Paul Weller Nick Cave and Joan Baez

Eliza is a huge favourite at the Pavilion and this year we are delighted to be able to celebrate Christmas with her (and the first birthday of daughter Florence Daisy who was born last Christmas Eve!)