ALAN JONES - MY FOLK STORY

By Alan Jones 

My love of the folk scene continued but as an audience member and a regular at Dave Burland's Club at the Civic Hall in Barnsley, with Regular singers like Derek and Dorothy Elliot, Jim Potter, Tony Heald, Tony Capstick, and I first saw a very young Mike Harding there as a guest. 

Skip now to the late nineties and my first visit to Whitby Folk Week where I discovered sessions - surely I can do that. I was fitting in playing guitar as long I could see another guitarist with standard tuning to follow, as I could not work out the key for myself, I also found a regular session in Doncaster run be Siggy Fretwell. It was so much fun I bought a fiddle. Mmmm… big mistake, if you cannot sing in tune you don't stand much chance with an unfretted or un-keyed instrument. S

alvation came when a friend loaned me a tenor banjo to have a go on, and the rest is history as they say. The icing on the cake of my folk story came when I started the Barnsley Celtic Session in 2013, With the help of social media it was a success from the start, Raymond Padgett a regular visitor to the session playing his concertina posted a small piece about the session in the 2016 Spring edition of Folk Roundabout, in the club news. 

I first discovered Folk Roundabout when Ray Padgett introduced me to a couple of mixed song and tune sessions in Wakefield run by David Nuttall about ten years ago, David Kidman was a regular and every quarter would have a bundle on sale with him. 

With the appearance of Covid-19 I took out a subscription to make sure I still get my copy. 

So that is about it, I have loved my life in the folk world, still do, culminating in running a session and playing in a trio called “Barnsdale Hood” just for charities and community events including folk clubs and festivals where any fees would go to a charity