Traditional English dance tunes and songs
Mat Green: fiddle
Andy Turner: anglo-concertina, melodeon, vocals
Mat and Andy are both founder members of Magpie Lane providing the instrumental drive at the heart of the band's dance music repertoire.
Born and bred in Bampton in Oxfordshire, Mat Green recently celebrated 50 years of dancing the morris, including 25 years as Squire of Bampton Morris. He took up the fiddle at the age of 14, learning from Bampton musicians including Arnold Woodley and Frank Purslow. For many years he played with the Woodpecker Band, favourites on the English Ceilidh scene. He has developed a unique, utterly danceable, quintessentially English fiddle style.
Andy Turner developed a love of traditional song in his late teens. Like Mat, he has many years' experience playing for dance, having originally been strongly influenced by dancing to - and later playing with - the Oyster Ceilidh Band. He has played with Polkabilly, Geckoes and most recently The Oxford NAGS. He danced with Canterbury-based Oyster Morris in the 1980s, and is now the musician for Headington Quarry Morris Dancers. Andy has a punchy, rhythmic concertina style, but is also able to play in a slower, smoother style to accompany his own fine singing.
More at www.andyturnermusic.uk
Together, Mat and Andy play mainly traditional English dance tunes. They specialise in little-known tunes from eighteenth and nineteenth century village musicians' tunebooks, but essentially will play any good dance tune from almost anywhere!
The tunes are interspersed with songs - again, mainly from English traditional sources.
'Time for a Stottycake', Mat and Andy's debut CD as a duo, released January 2024 on Wild Goose records.
This is a wonderful record indeed...
James Fagan, Thank Goodness It's Folk
Time For A Stottycake is folk music simply, and well, performed by two accomplished and experienced musicians and that’s quite a rarity these days..
Dai Jeffries, folking.com
You would be hard pressed to find a recording of two gentlemen more deeply immersed in English traditional song and dance... This is a fine album which I very much enjoyed... If you don’t get the chance to see them live then do treat yourself to this CD, make yourself comfortable and sit back and enjoy two performers on the top of their game.
Malcolm Woods, Essex Folk News
Well, this is an absolute delight. One of the UK's finest Anglo players and a fiddler with tradition running through his veins. Andy Turner and Mat Green are a joy to listen to, great tunes and songs played with delightfully understated arrangements. No imposed big band shouty arrangements just a grace note here and a harmony there. You are drawn in to the performance, the interplay and, more importantly, the music. Two instruments, and jolly nice chaps, in perfect affinity. English music played by those who understand, respect and revel in it. Buy a copy.
Martin Ellison
This is just my kind of album: unassuming but self-assured in the quality of its playing, the sort of album that reminds you of the quiet passion, brilliance and persistence of traditional music-making...
The familiarity of many of the tunes, such as the Bampton sets of Flowers Of Edinburgh/Princess Royal and Glorishears/Highland Mary, highlights just how good these two really are. The arrangements aren't flashy, and they eschew pyrotechnics in favour of the joy of playing together with an evident rapport and sympathetic understanding, as on their particularly fine set of Battle Of The Somme, with its unshowy harmonies...
It would be invidious to pick a favourite track, as the album is a solid and consistent pleasure. Describing it as "a comfort" risks misunderstanding, but this album really makes you feel like you've come home. Splendid stuff.
Paul Cowdell, Folk London
Mat and Andy previously contributed tracks to a CD on the Wild Goose label, released Autumn 2006, and no longer available. This CD featured dance tunes from a single nineteenth century musician, Richard Pyle, played by - among others - Tim Laycock, Paul Sartin, Roger Watson and the Bursleden Village Band.
For more information see the WildGoose Studios website.
Make sure you also check out the recordings of Magpie Lane.
Sunday 21st April
Oxford Folk Festival
'Three in One’ Concert with Ian Giles and Three Pressed Men
The Blue Room, St Aldate's Tavern, 108 St Aldate's, Oxford OX1 1BU
12:30 - 3:30pm
See the 'Three in One' concert flyer for details
Wednesday 12th June
Faversham Folk Club
The Limes (formerly The Chimney Boy), Preston Street, Faversham, Kent ME13 8PG
www.pigglet.co.uk/favfolk
Monday 24th June
Cheltenham Folk Club
Sandford Park Alehouse, 20 High Street, Cheltenham GL50 1DZ
Saturday 17th to Friday 23rd August
Whitby Folk Week
www.whitbyfolk.co.uk
including concerts on Thursday and Friday with Magpie Lane
Saturday 14th September
Lewes Saturday Folk Club
www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org
postponed
Monday 7th October
Cellar Upstairs Folk Club, London
www.cellarupstairs.org.uk
postponed
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