Dark To The Sky  MWMCD SP54
The Hush featuring Bob Fox (2002)

This one is enough to get Grandad out of his grave – dancing! 
Bob Fox and Jed Grimes put electric guitars, saxophone, 
percussion and a load more into a collection of the North-East’s 
finest folk songs. Traditionals such as Here’s the Tender Coming 
and contemporaries, including three from the pen of Johnny Handle 
provide the high quality material. 
Bob Fox's expressive, supple voice delivers every time, especially 
on the beautiful Sair Fyel'd Hinny where it's borne along by 
Graham Wood's ethereal piano. Paul Smith (drums/percussion) 
and Neil Harland (electric/double bass) make up the tightest 
rhythm section you could wish for and all topped off with 
Gary Linsley's tasteful sax playing.
On the finisher, Grimes's Fender Strat takes Byker Hill into 
the purest axe-fuelled rock territory, reclaiming its anthemic 
status along the way. 
If there is only one electrically enhanced “folk” album you 
buy this year, then make it this one. 

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Borrowed Moments  TSCD 544
Bob Fox (2003)

This album is Bob's first release for Topic Records released 
on 3rd September 2003. 
Backed by some fine musicians, and with a Celtic feel to 
some of the tracks, this album is full of lyrical songs with 
strong, narrative lyrics. Each song has a 'proper' tale to 
tell and deals with life events trivial and significant, 
personal and global, the essence of all folk music.
Bob plays acoustic guitar, bouzouki & piano, 
annA rydeR piano accordion and muted trumpet, 
Norman Holmes whistle and flute, Neil Harland double bass, 
and Chuck Fleming plays viola. 
The sound is pure and very acoustic with touches of Celtic 
because of the whistles, flutes and piano accordion. 
This is a finely produced and crafted album, which will really 
appeal to lovers of gentle, thoughtful English folk music.

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The Blast  TSCD 555
Bob Fox (2006)

The last album Bob released featured a ‘backing band’ but 
on this starkly contrasting recording it’s just the man himself 
accompanied by guitar, produced by John Tams. 
Fox is without doubt one of the finest singers in Britain and 
for those of us that have followed his career it will come as 
no surprise that the accolades will come thick and fast. 
From a technical perspective his guitar playing knows no 
bounds and at times is quite astonishing filling gaps and 
enhancing every syllable as if strategically placed like a 
soldier on military manoeuvre. 
That’s not to say the music’s soulless, far from it in fact 
for this is a thinking man’s musician who makes every 
note count. It's thought provoking and compelling listening 
and although indulgence isn’t a word that readily springs 
to mind when referring to a Bob Fox recording I hope that 
many more artists take note of how it should be done. 

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5 Star B & B 
Billy Mitchell & Bob Fox (2006)

Blimey these Geordie lads believe in working at 
break-neck speed! It was only in October 2006 that 
I was discussing with Billy and Bob that they should 
record an album together. Well, blow me down if they 
haven’t succeeded and, as you’d expect the quality 
is exceptional. On the back of a twenty-date tour 
together pulling what should have been two separate 
performances culminating with the pair playing together 
for a 20 minute set they were already joining each other 
on over 90% of the evening. Not bad going I think 
you’d agree. Basically a ‘best of…’ this recording provides 
the listener with a veritable smorgasbord including
‘Rocking Chair’, ‘Dance To Your Daddy’ topped nicely with 
the tune ‘The Spanish Cloak’, Jimmy Nail’s tremendous 
nostalgic view of the Tyne ‘Big River’, ‘Sally Wheatley’ 
and Billy’s ‘The Devil’s Ground’.
Billy and Bob’s vocal performances aren’t so much good as 
towering and while folk music has ambassadors like these
let’s count ourselves lucky that they have decided to settle 
in our camp. 
A round of applause should also go to Ron Angus who 
captured that real essence of a ‘live’ performance. 

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UK/Europe only

The Song of Steel

The Don Valley between Sheffield and Rotherham was once 
full of steelworks and many thousands of families relied on 
steel for their living. The Song of Steel offers a glimpse inside 
the lives of men and women who worked in the industry.
In its heyday the city thumped to the sound of heavy drop 
forges working night and day, pub tables had guard rails to 
stop glasses vibrating onto the floor, and the air was black 
with dirt from the factory chimneys. Interviewer Vince Hunt 
talked to more than forty men and women who tell of hard 
shifts working alongside red-hot furnaces and the humour 
and stoicism that enabled them to survive such a world. 
Many of the stories are about the Steel, Peach and 
Tozer steelworks in Rotherham.

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The Enemy That Lives Within

The second of the new Radio Ballads concerns people living 
with HIV/AIDS. 
Six women and men talk candidly about life with the virus - 
how they discovered they were HIV-positive, the effect the 
drugs have on them, and how people react when they disclose 
their connection with the virus. The ten outstanding original 
songs inspired by the interviews are personal and poignant, 
touching on the courage as well as the tragedy, the shame 
and the prejudice experienced by people living with HIV/AIDS. 
The stories featured in this ballad are all highly individual. 
Cecilia is a Ugandan woman who fled her home country and 
contracted HIV/AIDS while in the UK; Betty Feldman speaks
of her actor son who died of the virus; Ann Marie, a white 
South African, lost her British husband to the illness then 
discovered that he'd passed it on to her. Sophie discovered 
she was HIV-positive on her graduation day and went on to 
marry her boyfriend, with whom she hopes to have children; 
Maxwell, a teenage schoolboy in London, has a father who 
is also HIV-positive and Lynn, in her early twenties, contracted 
the virus through a blood transfusion.The battle to find a cure 
for HIV/AIDS has been one of the most urgent ongoing areas of 
medical research in recent years; the support and medicine now 
available helps prolong patients' lives beyond expectation. 
This Radio Ballad illustrates some of the issues surrounding 
the condition. 

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The Horn of the Hunter

Hunting with hounds has become one of the most controversial 
debates in British life in recent years. Fox hunting was made 
illegal last year and, though public debate has to some extent 
died down since the time of the ban, the issues are still 
contentious for many people. Those who hunt say the ban has 
destroyed rural livelihoods and traditional practices that are 
centuries old. Those opposed say hunting is a cruel and 
unnecessary practice that leads to the savage deaths of 
countless foxes and hares each year. 
The Horn of the Hunter features opinions from all sides of the 
debate, drawn from extensive interviews with both pro- and 
anti-hunt supporters across the UK.

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Swings and Roundabouts

The travelling showmen and women who run Britain's 
fairgrounds live within their own self-contained community, 
with their own seasons, rhythm of life, codes of behaviour 
and language. The fourth in the series of 2006 Radio Ballads, 
Swings and Roundabouts paints a musical and anecdotal 
portrait of the people who travel the country building and 
re-building their rides, always looking to attract customers
to their machines.
"This was a fascinating programme to make as a picture built 
up of the close-knit showmen and women community," said 
producer John Leonard. "Traditional fairground families can 
trace their lineage back six centuries - in some cases, back 
to the wandering minstrels."
One fascinating ritual of the fairgrounds inspired Edinburgh s
ongwriter Karine Polwart to write the song Luck Money, which 
tells how the first money taken on a new ride is then nailed or 
screwed to it, to bring luck, and that money stays on the ride 
throughout its life, being passed to a new owner if it is sold. 

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Thirty Years of Conflict

Disagreements between the Protestant and Catholic 
communities in Northern Ireland have existed for centuries, 
but the problems escalated into all-out conflict in the late 
1960s when the British army became involved. Since then, 
thousands of people have died in bombings and shootings 
carried out by both sides. Taking Bloody Sunday as a key 
turning point in The Troubles and using music as the linking 
thread, this Ballad tells personal stories from three decades 
of conflict in Northern Ireland
People from both traditions recount how the Troubles have 
affected them and their communities. Radio Foyle presenter 
and musician Gerry Anderson tells of the bombs he's survived 
in the place he dubbed 'Stroke City' (Derry/Londonderry) and,
in a particularly moving sequence, survivors of the 
Miami Showband tell their stories of the day in 1975 when 
three of the band were murdered by terrorists. 
Both these accounts inspired powerful songs from songwriter 
Jez Lowe. 
The programme also considers how music has been used as 
a force for peace, to pull the two communities together. 
Veteran Civil Rights activist and peace campaigner 
Tommy Sands contributes several songs to the Ballad including 
the finale, Carry On, which he sang with politicians outside 
Stormont in the days leading up to the signing of the 
Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Thirty Years of Conflict is a 
Radio Ballad full of harrowing stories that stands as a 
testament to the power of music.

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The Ballad of the Big Ships

The final programme in the 2006 Radio Ballads series examines 
the lives of shipbuilders from Tyne and Wear and the Clyde, 
two regions with a proud maritime history. Shipbuilding has 
been in the blood for generations on these rivers, although 
the heyday for both communities is well in the past. 
The men and women in The Ballad of the Big Ships talk about
how building ships has driven their lives, their hopes, their 
humour and their culture.
The Ballad covers all aspects of shipbuilding, from the 
dirty jobs: plating, welding and riveting - known as the 
'black trades' - to the finishing and launch. It’s brutal work, 
welding steel as icy winds blow in from the river; uncomfortable, 
uncertain and dangerous, yet these people's anecdotes reveal 
how humans look for the funny side of such an existence. 
Both sets of interviewees - Geordies and Glaswegians - share 
an unbreakable gift to see the funny side of life, however bleak
it appears. Former Glasgow shipyard worker turned poet 
Brian Whittingham reads ‘The Apprentice’ about his memories of 
working as a young lad in the yards and ‘The Great Voltaire’ 
about the amateur turns who would entertain their colleagues 
with magic shows, tricks or singing. Among the horror stories of 
asbestosis and the terrible conditions under which shipworkers 
toil, it's the resilience and creativity of the men and women who 
contributed to The Ballad of the Big Ships which leaves a lasting 
emotional impression.

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The Songs of the Radio Ballads

A special album of 'songs only' from the BBC Radio 2 
documentary series The 2006 Radio Ballads,
a stand-alone companion piece to the six-CD Radio Ballads 
collection. The documentary series was built on interviews 
about issues of our time – hunting with hounds, the decline 
of the steel and shipbuilding industries, living with HIV/AIDS, 
the lives of the showmen and women of the travelling 
fairgrounds and how music attempted to heal Northern 
Ireland's Troubles. 
The songs were inspired by and written from accounts of 
actual life experience, and speech and song were interwoven 
to create a rarely-attempted self-narrating storytelling style 
in the Ballads.
Musical Director John Tams and series music producer 
Andy Seward have gone back and stripped out the speech so 
the songs stand alone in their own right. The twenty songs on 
this album have been drawn from across the Ballads series and 
represent just one-third of the songs specially commissioned 
for this remarkable and critically acclaimed radio series.

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