News
September 2009
It has been a really strong and enjoyable year for the JRB. The summer saw new festival gigs and trips to Spalding, Burnham on Sea and South Hams folk and music clubs. Southwell, Spratton, and Bromsgrove festivals were excellent and it was great to be part of the first Moira Furnace Folk Festival which enjoyed a very successful first year.
The Ritz club gig was an excellent excursion particularly being Chris’s birthday and the club has a great atmosphere and a pool of very talented and diverse singers which we enjoyed a lot.
It was a special pleasure to be asked to play Spalding Folk Clubs 30th anniversary gig. We had played their 10th anniversary gig as Maurice and the Minors but not been back since and it was great to catch up with stalwarts of the Lincolnshire folk scene twenty years on.
The South Devon trip was wonderful. We played Kennford, near Exeter, Malborough near Salcombe and Folk on the Moor at Lee Mill near Exeter. There were also people at these gigs who had seen some of us, as Maurice and the Minors, play at the Mill on the Exe, and Bodmin Folk Club, 22 years ago. They still had their Run By The Moon LPs.
At Folk On The Moor, there was a chap who has been singing Drakes Drum for 14 years having been recommended to the song by a friend. He was at the gig on Sunday and had no idea that we had been ‘Maurice’. He was beside himself when he realised that John was the writer and we gave him an unplayed Run By The Moon for his collection.
We are going to simply cut and paste the review from Lee Mill below because that will underline what a great time we had in the South Hams.
“The John Richards Band are, quite simply, phenomenal. They have as their foundation songs, created by John, which move the heart with their beauty and the mind with their tremendous lyrics. The arrangements are stunning - laced as they are with brilliant keyboard work from both Allie Fellows and Jim Sutton, fine flute and banjo playing from Chris Drinnan, together with lovely vocals from Emma Nijs. When you add to this John’s solid guitar work and soulful singing, not forgetting Jim’s bass and Allie’s accordion, you simply couldn’t ask for more. These are five musicians who create an evening’s entertainment to remain in the memory to cheer the cold days and to conjure a fond smile. Folk On The Moor eagerly awaits their return!
Thanks for one of the best ever sessions at FOTM.”
Graham Searle
Folk On The Moor
In October we play Eccleshall Folk Club for the first time; we are at Vicky’s Unicorn Folk Club in November and we will be working hard through the next three months on new songs that John has been writing so that they are in the set for next year.
There are already exciting things happening in respect of 2010 with a number of festivals pencilled in, gigs at the Woodman, Brewood Folk Club and the Newhampton Acoustic Club already booked and some village Hall and Arts centre dates in discussion but we’ll add them all and email you in a couple of months time.
You may have recently seen the feature article on John in the Express & Star. As you’ll have seen, more and more people are covering his songs as each year goes by and he and the Band are enjoying much deserved increased acclaim both for John’s songs and for the Band’s performances.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the gigs in the near future.
Finally, we’d like to ask you to join the bands Facebook page please. We’ll be linking it up properly with the web page shortly but it’s another very good way of keeping in touch with events and if any of you have any questions about anything to do with the Band, or with John’s songs, you can easily contact us. You can also send messages and post comments – as long as they are polite ;-)
Cheers and see you soon!
The JRB