AFTER 12 years fronting folk big band Bellowhead, Jon Boden is going solo with plans for festival appearances this summer and a November tour.
"I thought about doing nothing after Bellowhead, but that hasn’t worked out," says Boden, whose inaugural Yorkshire show will be at Victoria Hall, Saltaire, on November 18.
"My first solo gig is going to be at Cambridge Folk Festival [July 28], which feels very appropriate. It’s a festival I’ve played many, many times in every possible guise, as is Sidmouth Folk Festival [August 4]. There’s something really special about both of them.
"Similarly, playing at Snape Maltings [Aldeburgh, August 1]. It’s a really beautiful concert hall. I’ve done some wacky stuff there over the years. This time it’ll just be good to go out there with just a guitar and a fiddle and see what happens."
Jon Boden: "Going out there with just a guitar and a fiddle"
Boden has won a total of 11 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in various line-ups, including Singer of the Year in 2011, and he has been a trailblazer both for the folk world but beyond it too, such as performing Elvis Costello's The Juliet Letters with the Sacconi Quartet and creating the stage show The Ballad Of Little Musgrave And Lady Barnard as part of Benjamin Britten's centenary celebrations in 2013. Boden also was the driving force behind the epic Folk Song A Day, a digital project designed to encourage communal singing, which ran for a year.
Already Boden has put a new live track, All Hang Down, on Soundcloud and YouTube. Tickets for November 18 can be booked on 01274 588614 or at saltairelive.co.uk
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