AKappella Workshop

 

In case you didn't know already our belovéd ChoirMeister, Chris Samuel is bringing more of his vocal magic to the wonderful Ashton Keynes Music festival to help us celebrate our 6th Birthday!  

More later with pictures.

Spotted at the BBC 2 Folk Awards 2014

Did you enjoy the BBC 2 Folk Awards 2014 the other night?  If you are lucky to have one of those modern colour tellies that have a "magic red button" you might have been able to bear witness to the spectacular that had luminaries like The Full English who feature an Alfred Williams song on their album.

If you were even luckier you might well have actually been there in person to witness the return of the, er, magnificent Fisherman's Friends after their tragic events a while back.  

And we know someone who was that lucky man, namely Chris Samuel, sat here in the audience with his good lady wife and captured as the camera swept round the audience during Fisherman's Friends rendition of our popular shanty "North North Wiltshire", which they have nattily re-titled "South Australia" to help ingratiate themselves with that particular market*.

Can you spot him?  And whose T-Shirt is he wearing . . . ?

* P.S. On checking our facts much of that sentence may not be completely accurate - the bit about Fishermen's Friends and South Australia.

Getting back to your froots

The Magnificent AK47 owe an oblique, but not inconsiderable, debt to a certain magazine called fROOTS.  Back in the mists of time, or maybe it was even further back in the myths of time, an advert was noticed by a certain someone for an event known as the Sidmouth Folk Festival and ultimately led to a visit to the south coast of merrie England for said festival.  

As part of this line up that year there was a 13 piece Antipodean male voice singing group advertised for the Friday night.  The photo of this lot did not look very enticing but somehow this did not deter our valiant festival goers who ventured along to the warm up session featuring the "best of the Festival" to see what the main acts were coming up and there they witnessed an almost subliminal moment when the men in black (mostly) from Down Under performed.  Low, harmonious and hilarious, we were smitten and duly sought them out after the performance to sign a rapidly purchased CD.  In amongst these giants we got talking to one of them who sounded decidedly Non-Australian who turned out to be our very own ChoirMeister, Mr Chris Samuel, and one thing led to another, but that is a story for another time. . . 

So, how can we repay this enormous debt?  Simple, subscribe to get your own copy now and help ensure the continuing existence of this venerable publication as it seeks to ride the waves of fashion and continue to sail the seas of magical, musical discovery.  Go on, you owe it to yourself and the rest of us!  Do it now! Click here.