June Tabor triumphs at BBC Radio 2 Folk awards

Veterans dominate this year as June Tabor and Oysterband win four prizes, including best album and folk singer of the year

British folk has enjoyed an exciting resurgence during the last few years, owing to younger artists brimming with energy and imagination – yet you wouldn't have known it as the old guard cleaned up at this year's BBC Radio 2 Folk awards.

Held for the first time outside London – at Salford's Lowry theatre – the awards were dominated by a collaboration between two of the scene's hardy perennials, seasoned folk rockers Oysterband and long-revered singer June Tabor, reviving an experiment last explored 21 years ago. Not only were they named best group, their Ragged Kingdom CD won best album and their brooding arrangement of the Napoleonic ballad Bonnie Bunch of Roses won best traditional track.

Tabor – who released her first album in 1976 – won the most coveted gong of the night as folk singer of the year, beating three of the top representatives of a new generation – Jackie Oates, Emily Smith and Jon Boden. Even Tabor – not a lover of award ceremonies – seemed overwhelmed. "To be honest, it's all a bit too much," she said after receiving her prize from actor Stephen Mangan.

Another reunion – of 80s electric folk band Home Service – won best live act with lifetime achievement awards for Don McLean and the Dubliners and further honours for pioneering producer Bill Leader, veteran Scottish singer Ian Campbell (with some wry comments about the fickleness of fame) and Malcolm Taylor, curator of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at London's Cecil Sharp House.

Another evergreen veteran Steve Tilston won the best new song award for The Reckoning, though he had to share it with the hugely talented young singer and writer Bella Hardy for her empowering story of The Herring Girl. Lucy Ward – a resplendent figure in blue hair and voluminous dress – took the Horizon award for best new act and Northern Irish band Ioscaid won the Young Folk award as the march of youth finally had its say. Guitarist/accordion wizard Tim Edey beat Andy Cutting, Martin Simpson and Will Pound to musician of the year and his partnership with harmonica star Brendan Power not only won the best duo prize, but also produced one of the most exciting live performances of the night.

Moving the awards to Salford wasn't unanimously popular, but with the general public allowed in for the first time, tickets sold out in two hours and the added gravitas of the more formal concert setting did it no harm. Rare among awards ceremonies, every recipient turned up and mostly behaved themselves – though the BBC suits may have cringed as Steve Knightley – presenting June Tabor and Oysterband with their best group award – launched into a well-aimed diatribe about the closure of regional folk radio shows and the practice of venues charging artists to sell their own CDs at gigs.

There were some terrific performances too – most compellingly the Unthanks with the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band delivering a powerful and deeply moving arrangement of King of Rome; Martin Simpson's band opening the show with a stomping Lakes of Pontchartrain; and Christy Moore wrestling every ounce of heartbreak from On Morecambe Bay, Kevin Littlewood's tragic story of drowned Chinese cockle pickers, one of the four shortlisted for best original song.

That's more than can be said of Don McLean, arriving on stage in a slightly bizarre brown silk shirt with a guitar excruciatingly out of tune – and a voice not a whole lot better – to perform painful versions of And I Love You So and Homeless Brother. Thank goodness, then, for the dear old Dubliners. After 50 years they've had key casualties along the way but closing the night with Whiskey in the Jar and Dirty Old Town – Ewan MacColl's classic bittersweet paean to Salford – they still know what to do with a rousing chorus. If the awards proved anything, it's that there's life in the old dogs yet …

Contributor

Colin Irwin

The GuardianTramp

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