Sam Kelly (duo)

Event information

Three top class acts performing at our folk club.
Tickets £8.

Ben P Williams 8.00-8.35
Tracey Browne 8.50-9.30
Sam Kelly (duo) 9.45-10.30

Sam Kelly
Sam Kelly is a twenty-three year old singer, song-writer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from the depths of Norfolk. Sam's only link to folk music as a young child lay in the gaelic folk songs that his Irish grandfather would teach him to sing. Although many individual songs and tunes have been lost in the blur of childhood memory, Sam has never lost the love and awe for the beautiful sounds of traditional music, and this passion pours out of him in every note he sings.

Sam's debut EP - entitled 'Your Way Home' was released in March 2013, which swiftly created a buzz of interest in the folk scene for Sam's music. He followed this up with the release of the widely acclaimed 'Spokes' EP in February 2015. This cemented Sam's place further as one of the most exciting young prospects in the folk scene - landing him a nomination in the Best Singer category at the 2015 Spiral Earth Awards, and grabbing the attention of BBC Radio 2's Folk Show. Touring as a trio with Jamie Francis (banjo) and Evan Carson (percussion), Sam has gained a reputation for an incredibly high class and dynamic live show, and the guys are rapidly becoming firm favourites at venues and festivals in all parts of the country. After a barnstorming performance to a completely rammed Club Tent at Cambridge Folk Festival 2015, the guys were invited to play their first session on Radio 2 live from the festival.

Not content with resting on his laurels, Sam enlisted the extraordinary talents of new band members Ciaran Algar (fiddle) and Graham Coe (cello) and went straight back into the studio to record his debut album. 'The Lost Boys' came out in November 2015 to a storm of rave reviews, cementing Sam's place as one of the most rapidly rising stars on the UK folk scene, and enticing Radio 2 to invite the guys into the BBC studios as the featured live session guests on the Mark Radcliffe Show - an honour usually only bestowed upon much more established musicians. The album has also been championed by numerous legends of folk broadcasting, including Mike Harding - who played tracks from the album for four weeks in a row on his online radio podcast. Sam is taking the album on tour throughout 2016 with the full album band, aptly named Sam Kelly and The Lost Boys.

His love for Irish gaelic led Sam on to exploring other celtic languages, namely Cornish - one of the most endangered languages in the world. He co-formed the Cornwall-based collective The Changing Room along with song-writer Tanya Brittain, and they began working with Cornish language expert Dr Ken George to write exciting new folk-infused songs in the Cornish language. This partnership has received national acclaim, attracting guest musicians of the highest calibre including Jon Cleave (Fisherman's Friends) and John McCusker, and after numerous features on Radio 2 and Radio 3, Sam became the first person ever to sing in Cornish on National Radio - generating a huge surge of interest in the largely forgotten language. The Changing Room represented Cornwall at the international Pan Celtic song competition in Derry in April 2015 and took the contest by storm, winning all three categories that they were entered in - Best Original Song, Best Traditional Song, and Best Traditiona
l Band. Their debut album 'Behind the Lace' is out now, and they are already working on their second album, due for release in mid 2016

Coming from a family largely made up of Norfolk dairy farmers has left Sam with an unmatched experience of singing in front of hurtfully disinterested Friesians, and his meandering musical journey has ranged from reaching the final of ITV's Britain's Got Talent as a teenager, to being selected for the first ever EFDSS Artist Development Scheme. Whether playing to 13 million people on prime-time television, or to 10 people in a tiny pub, Sam's child-like fascination with music shines through, and his passion for discovering and rekindling the sounds of his musical heritage has gained him the respect of peers and audiences worldwide.
www.SamKelly.org
https://www.facebook.com/samkellymusic
https://twitter.com/samkellymusic

Tracey Browne
Tracey Browne is a songwriter, singer, musician and producer based in Manchester, UK. Her vocals have been featured, not only on her own solo work, but also on recordings by Thea Gilmore, Nigel Stonier and many more commercial and independent releases across the world. She is also an experienced live sound engineer, working at Cambridge Folk Festival every year as part of the team on the Club Tent stage. She has garnered praise and airplay on BBC Radio 2 for her solo album 'Everyone Is Ordinary' thanks to Janice Long; she has also been featured on the BBC Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe, for her collaborative album with Raevennan Husbandes.
"Cracking" - Janice Long
"Just the warm, musical hug everyone needs" - City Life, Manchester
"Once heard, she's in your head and your heart for good" - Thea Gilmore
www.traceybrowne.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/tbrownemusic
https://twitter.com/TheTraceyBrowne

Ben P Williams
A singer-songwriter who moulds the classic songwriting sound of Paul Simon with the laid back nature of Jack Johnson, Ben Williams is a difficult artist to pigeon-hole and all the better for it. His debut album 'Who Do You Think You Are?' has received airplay on BBC Radio 2, including the Dermot O Leary Show, and was described by Janice Long as 'so beautiful'. R2 magazine thought the album was 'guaranteed to bring a smile to your face'. Ben's Christmas song 'Too Cold For Snow' was played on BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Day.
Having started as a busker, Ben Williams' rise to prominence in the music industry has been truly impressive. Grammy award winning producer Ken Nelson (Coldplay, Paulo Nutini), who knows a great musician when he sees one, describes him as "an excellent guitarist and great to have around on a recording session", while drummer and producer Steve White (Paul Weller, Style Council, Oasis) called him "great guitarist and top musician". These are professionals who gained a position in the industry by being able to identify talent, and they see it in Ben Williams.
And finally, if you were in any doubt as to how passionate Williams is about his songwriting, he also runs his own blog about songwriting - http://www.songwriterstalkaboutsongwriting.com/. Having interviewed people like Dan Wilson, Jamie Lawson, Ron Sexsmith, Chris Difford, Frank Turner and more, this is one songwriter who is keen to keep honing and learning his craft.
www.benpwilliams.com
https://www.facebook.com/BenPWilliamsGuitar
https://twitter.com/benpwilliams

Doors open at 7.00. No entrance once the acts are on stage. If you're late, you'll have to wait til the breaks.

Bookshop bar open serving ale and wine, hot and cold drinks and cake!

Booking highly recommended. Tickets from the link above or direct from the shop. Not available via phone.

For venue and parking info please see www.thebigcomfybookshop.co.uk