![[Image]](fphead.gif)
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 Playing at Leigh Folk Festival 2003. Left to right: Prof, Keith, Melanie, Tony, Paul, Richard, Charlie, Nigel. Andy Kershaw session |
The Famous Potatoes are:-
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In the 29 years that the Famous Potatoes have been going, we have played for 1500 events - about two-thirds of them barn dances and about one-third other events.
We've always had difficulty in describing our style of music because it includes influences from so many different sources... We call it "SOIL MUSIC" because it's earthy - made up of western swing, bluegrass, country, gospel, folk, cajun and who knows what all else! We appear in the Guinness Who's Who of Folk Music (and its parent edition, the multi-volume Directory of Popular Music: check your local library), and get a brief mention in the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Popular Music.
Appearances range from the Lord Mayor's Show to busking amongst dustbins! We have played at many big venues including the 100 Club in Oxford Street, London; Colston Hall, Bristol; and St George's Hall, Bradford. We have appeared at the Greenbelt Festival 14 times, and other festival appearances include repeat bookings at all the following: the Kent Country Music Festival, the Trowbridge Village Pump Folk Festival, Broadstairs Folk Week, the Skjærgårdsgospel (Seaside Gospel Festival) in Norway, and of course our very own Leigh Folk Festival, which takes place over the last weekend of June each year and at which we have been regular performers since it started.In the last few years we've appeared at many venues specially licenced for weddings such as The Lawn, Hawkwell, Essex; Vaulty Manor, Heybridge, Essex; Cressing Temple Barns, near Witham, Essex; Preston Priory Barn, near Lavenham, Suffolk; Lains Barn, near Wantage, Oxfordshire; and Lodge Park, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
We have appeared five times on national TV (the Generation Game in 1999; The Big Breakfast in 1993; the Lord Mayor's Show in 1987; Songs of Praise in 1985; and an Anglia documentary about the Greenbelt Festival in the mid-1980s). One of our recordings, "Famous Potatoes", was used as a feature on several occasions by Simon Mayo on his BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. Andy Kershaw has described us as one of Britain's best barn dance bands, has played our songs several times on his BBC Radio 1, Radio 3 and World Service shows, and we appeared in a session on his Radio 3 show (performing Johnson Boys, Newton Grove / George Washington, Cherokee Shuffle / Paddy Won't You Drink Some Cider, Hold That Critter Down and Log Cabin Home In The Sky) in 2006. We have performed in Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. However, we are equally at home playing for shows and barn dances close to our base of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex (England), which make up most of our bookings.
We supply our own public address system (included in the booking price). We have two Peavey and four Bose loudspeakers (plus extra loudspeakers for when we play in a really big barn), a 20-channel Yamaha mixer/amplifier, a small Fender amplifier to drive our monitor speakers, and lights. If you have your own P.A. which you want us to use, please note that as we have a large number of acoustic instruments, we need a minimum of eight microphones.
Our booking costs include a barn dance caller (unusually for barn dance bands, we have two experienced callers within the group), travelling expenses and, as mentioned above, our P.A. If we are are travelling outside our base in south-east Essex, we will need to charge an additional amount to cover increased time and petrol costs. Please ring (01702 474255) or e-mail to discuss costs and anything else you'd like to know.
For details of our CD, LPs and tapes, see our Product page.
If you'd like to see some of our older photos you can find them at our Old Photos page.
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This page was last updated on 17 March 2008
