Mary Humphreys

Although Mary was born and educated in Wales, she lived and sang for many years in the Manchester region, with a brief excursion to Hull in the early 1970s.

She ran the university folk club during most of her three years in Manchester as a student, was a member of a critics group modelled on Ewan McColl's London Critics Group and was a resident at Harry Boardman's Unicorn Folk Club from 1985 until its demise years later.

With Harry Boardman and others she took part in a series of BBC North West radio programmes called "Ballads of Manchester" which were inspired by Ewan McColl's Radio Ballads. If you follow this link and scroll to the bottom of the page you can find out more about the recordings.

In 1988 Mary moved to West Yorkshire to join the Ryburn Three Step organisation where she was a resident singer at the Folk club and often played for the longsword dance team and took part in a regular English traditional music session at the Bridge Inn, Ripponden.

From mid 2001 she has been living in East Anglia and working with Anahata on song arrangements with a wider variety of instruments.

Songs

Mary's interest in English traditional music is informed not only by listening to source singers but also by research into the literature and recordings of collectors such as Cecil Sharp, whose widespread collection included many beautiful songs from the two sisters, Louie Hooper & Lucy White, from Hambridge. Here is her interpretation of a verse of one of their most poignant songs, 'No, my love, not I'(MP3). in a new version from a track of the album Sharp Practice on the Wild Goose Label. Maud Karpeles,W.Percy Merrick, Percy Grainger and Kenneth Peacock from Newfoundland are more of Mary's great favourites on the collectors lists. Her ability to read music is a real aid to her resurrection and performance of traditional music gathering dust in books. More recently she has been involved with deciphering the manuscripts of Ralph Vaughan Williams who visited Meldreth, Cambridgeshire for the summers of 1906 and 1907. He visited many of the surrounding villages and collected songs from local inhabitants. Most of the songs on her new CD ( Cold Fen) consist of arrangements of these songs. She has also resurrected songs from the village of Cottenham in Cambridge which were collected by Ella Bull from a family servant Charlotte Few. Some of the results of this work has been published, in collaboration with Derek Schofield in English Dance & Song, the magazine of the EFDSS. Here is a link to the article: EDS article Summer 2006 As a Welsh-educated singer Mary also has a number of Welsh language songs (some with choruses!) in her repertoire in which the Yorkshire audiences joined enthusiastically. Ar fore dydd nadolig (MP3) is a performance of a mediaeval Welsh Christmas carol at the Ryburn Three Step Folk Club in December 2000. (bagpipe drone courtesy of Steve Harrison)

Other Musical Interests Mary plays keyboard for English country dance music. In Yorkshire Mary regularly played keyboards in the Herb Boys band and at the sessions at the Bridge in Ripponden - the Monday night sessions which are the focus for the Village Music Project initiators. Mary and Anahata are part of the Martyn Wyndham-Read Song Links 2 Project which launched the new CD at Cecil Sharp House in London on April 17th. Anahata and Mary form half of a ceilidh band Fendragon based, not surprisingly, in the Cambridge area, along with Dave and Gina Holland - talented young musicians who have appeared on our three Wild Goose CDs. Fendragon was booked for the Chester Folk Festival ceilidh on Friday 26th May 2006. Mary is also part of the ceilidh band English Rebellion which made their grand debut at the Anchor Gardens and other venues at the Sidmouth International Festival in 2003 and more recently performed at Shrewsbury Folk Festival in 2007. She is now established as a duo with the instrumentalist Anahata, who accompanies her singing on cello, pipes, melodeon or Anglo concertina. As a duo, they have their own Web page

Gigs For gig information, see Mary and Anahata's Gigs Page Mary and Anahata were regular visitors to The National Folk Festival at Sutton Bonington and were at the last of these in 2005. In 2005 they were guests at several festivals:Chippenham, Holmfirth, Broadstairs and Whitby. In 2006 they were at Cornwall and Sidmouth. In 2007 they have performed at Chippenham, Sidmouth, Dartmoor, Bideford, Whitby and Shrewsbury Festivals. Next year ( 2008) they will be at Chester Folk Festival, Saddleworth and Shrewsbury. Other dates will be posted here as they become available. Mary and Anahata are available for local gigs (Cambridge, London, East Anglia) most evenings. A sample tape or CD of Mary's work (with Anahata) is available on request. All the tracks are available as MP3 files. See Mary and Anahata's Recordings page for details of this and the CDs "Sharp Practice" and "Floating Verses" on the Wild Goose Label.

At Sidmouth 2002 Song Links Concert. Photo by Vic Smith

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