NEWS ARCHIVE
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2011:
LATEST NEWS:
Friday 25th February | Two great weeks at the Willows!
We've enjoyed two great weeks at the Willows, starting with the guest appearance on Wednesday 16th February by amazing guitar-and-accordion duo EWAN WILKINSON & SANDY BRECHIN! The sublime mix of Ewan's great voice and songwriting skill coupled with Sandy's masterful (and very fast!) accordion playing, along with their witty and engaging audience communication skills, made for a true evening to remember!
Thanks to Ewan & Sandy's performance, we do actually have two new YouTube videos for you to enjoy! This first video features the duo performing Ewan's haunting original song "Lost in the Day":
This second video shows off Sandy's unbelievable dexterity on the accordion, with a terrific set of tunes!
We had another great evening last Wednesday (23rd February), as we hosted another of our classic Come All Ye - Open Stage Nights! Thanks to all the many performers who came along to lend their talents to this evening of music - and, big thanks to Guest MC Richard Ratcliffe for again covering regular MC Chris who has quite obviously been drinking out of damp glasses again!! (Don't worry, we expect him to be back to full volume next week!)
Also - over the years people have asked us if we could make each Willows flyer available to download. This was never possible with the software we were using before, but have recently redesigned the flyer in a new piece of software that allows us to make our flyer available as a downloadable PDF - PDF stands for "Portable Document Format" and is accessible by any computer that has Adobe Acrobat Reader installed! (And if you don't have Acrobat Reader, don't worry, it's a free and easy download!) Click here to download the new flyer, or visit our What's On page for more information!
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Friday 11th February | An EPIC Open Stage Night!
Last Wednesday's Come All Ye - Open Stage Night can truthfully only be described as "epic"! With 25 performers and a total of 70 people in attendance, to be generating these sorts of numbers in the current economic climate is very special and all of us involved with the Willows would like to extend a big thank you to everyone for their excellent support!
Amongst the many talented artists who treated us to a couple of songs was singer-songwriter Jules Winchester, who has uploaded both songs she played to her own YouTube channel, and which we're pleased to be able to feature here! This first video shows Jules performing "I Can See An Angel":
This second video shows Jules performing an acoustic version of her song "The Book", which is actually also her debut single:
Once again, many thanks to all those who turned up last Wednesday!
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Tuesday 8th February | Shining young stars entertain us last Wednesday!
We had a sublime evening of entertainment last week at the Willows when award-winning folk musicians JACKIE OATES & MIKE COSGRAVE came to play for us! Jackie has played the Willows twice before and always charmed everyone with her beautiful vocals and fiddle playing, whereas for Mike it was his first visit. Both were warmly welcomed with two sets of great music!
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Thanks to Jackie and Mike's performance, we also have two new additions to the Willows' YouTube channel - big thanks to loyal Willows supporter Maureen for helping us out by taking these videos! This first video shows Jackie and Mike playing the first track from Jackie's most recent album "Hperboreans", the folksong "The Miller and His Three Sons":
This second video features Jackie and Mike leading the audience in the chorus song "Fathom the Bowl":
Huge thanks to Jackie and Mike for a great evening of music, and to everyone who came along to support them and the club!
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Friday 28th January | January roundup!
First of all, a very belated "Happy New Year" to everyone! Apologies that this website has gone without an update for so long - unfortunately just before the end of the club's Christmas break, our computer here at Willows HQ began to enter its dying throes, and so we've had to transfer lots of files and material from one computer to a new one! As you can imagine this has caused a lot of delays...but, we're finally getting there! We should hopefully have more regular updates again to this site from now on!
A huge thank you to everyone who supported the Willows during January, and special thanks as well to Richard Ratcliffe who stepped in at short notice on the first night back to cover for MC Chris who was poorly! (Don't worry, he's back to full volume now!)
As well as our two excellent Come All Ye - Open Stage Nights, on 19th January we also had a great (and well-attended) Showcase Special night, featuring two top-class acts playing an extended set, Peter Bennett & Rick Biddulph and bluegrass band The Southdown Ramblers! Thanks to these two acts we actually have two new YouTube videos to share with all of you! This first video features a great and moving song from Peter & Rick, and showcases just what classy musicians they are:
This next video shows Peter & Rick teamed up with Willows regular and harmonica virtuoso Richard Ratcliffe for some red-hot acoustic blues!
This next video features local bluegrass aces The Southdown Ramblers playing one of their most popular numbers, their take on Steve Earle's song "Carrie Brown":
Last but not least, here are the Ramblers debuting a new song for their repertoire, a gospel-influenced number called "Hallelujah I'm Ready":
Once again, thanks to everyone who supported and entertained us during January, it means a lot! Looking forward to seeing you all in February!
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