The Gardeners Green Folk Music Club is kicking off a new season of events with a house concert this Saturday, beginning promptly at 7 p.m.
The performer is Graham Metcalfe, a collector and singer of traditional English folk songs. He hails from the village of Upper Poppleton, near York. He has been singing for 50 years, both on his own and as part of various combinations of well-known singers on the English folk scene, and contributed to various CDs.
For the past 30 years he has been an important part of the extremely rich traditional music scene in Oxford, where he is known as "Oxford's favourite Yorkshireman."
Graham says of himself: "Born at an early age in a Yorkshire village, the only music to follow was rock 'n roll. However, it lost something in the dialect, so after trying this and that, I stumbled into folk music, which at first I treated like an old sock — at arm's length — but it soon grew on me and it's been downhill ever since."
Graham possesses a rich, warm, mellow voice, singing folk songs as perhaps they were always meant to be — sung very well by an ordinary man in the way he wants to sing them. The style is true Yorkshire, and true Graham.
Perhaps best known in trios like Folly Bridge, Graham is an impressive singer in his own right. He is naturally relaxed and totally at ease with his chosen material, which he performs with real conviction and not a trace of complacency.
Phone 250-337-5337 if you'd like to reserve tickets. They're $20, and include hot drinks and a bounteous dessert buffet. There will also be another popular charity raffle for families and children during the evening, with great prizes.
Graham and his wife Lucinde are keen to have a singaround/song exchange after the concert, so any of you wishing to participate, or to just listen, are welcome to stay for that when the concert finishes.
— Gardeners Green Folk Music Club