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Giff's News |
Well,
here it is, my new up to date, super duper web site with the ‘newsletter’
(you’re reading it at the moment in case you didn’t realise!) as part of it.
My sincere thanks goes to my web master and old friend Mark Dowding for making
this all possible. Maybe now I can keep things up to date more easily!
It
was an interesting ending to last year after the festival season because Janet
and I did a bit of world travelling as part of her duties as president of her
professional body. This meant that my gigs were a bit restricted from late
September onwards.
However,
visits to Edinburgh, Cape Town, Hong Kong and Beijing more than compensated for
the lack of folk performances - for some reason! We finished the year with a
holiday (well you need one after all that travelling!) in Thailand via
Singapore. Needless to say my world bird list took a boost and my bank balance a
dive!
At
the start of this year I found myself a bit short on gigs too not having had
much time to arrange many at the back end of last year. However, I’ve managed to do a
bit of catching up and things are looking much busier now.
Following
Folkus’s highly successful 3rd
weekend of music making at Waddow Hall, Clitheroe in February, I appeared in
March in a new folk radio programme at Chorley FM hosted by the very
professional Jamie Blatchley to talk about the work of Folkus. It also
gave me a chance to sing some of my songs from my current album live in the
studio. I continue to do my guitar workshops for Folkus of course which
are listed in my gig list.
I’ll
be appearing at quite a few festivals this year starting at Easter with
the Glasson
Maritime Festival. This is a substitute, though on a much smaller scale,
for the wonderful Lancaster Maritime Festival. David Wright and Val’ Simpkin
have worked enormously hard to produce this replacement festival so do give it
your support. I look forward to seeing a number of you there. Three Sheets to
the Wind will be there too, of course, creating mayhem no doubt!
In
May I’ll be appearing at Chippenham
Folk Festival as a solo artist with occasional performances with Keith
Kendrick as One Sheet Short - cos’
Geoff Higginbottom can’t make it!
In
June I’ll be doing a guitar workshop for Folkus at the Middlewich
Folk and Boat Festival and in July I’ll be appearing at Saddleworth
Folk Festival.
In
August I’ll be doing a series of beginner’s guitar workshops at Broadstairs
Folk Week this year as well as numerous other performances during the
week..
As
usual I’ll be at Fylde Folk
Festival in September where a highlight will be a repeat performance of
my highly successful Birds in Folk Song show. I particularly enjoy the
festival season because it gives me a chance to say hello to lots of friends and
supporters all over the country.
Don’t
forget to check my gig list for all the other bookings I’m doing round the
country his year. Hopefully, I’ll be able to update it on a much more regular
basis now too.
The
Lancashire Voices project has made progress recently with the release of
Volume 4 - ‘Lancashire Songs by Lancashire Singers’ in November last
year. Our selection of local singers worked very hard on the songs we’d given
them from our researches and the resulting album is a stunner. There are only a
few left (remember we only do a limited run of 100 for each album) so if you
want one let me know soon. Because it’s a non-profit making project they’re
only £5 each plus £1 P&P - see the printable separate order form for this
and all the other albums I sell.
Do
let me know what you think of the new web site - politely of course! Suggestions
for further improvement are welcome.
Looking
forward to seeing some of you soon. Bye for now,
Derek Giff Gifford.