DICK Gaughan and Allan Taylor link up for the Both Sides The Tweed Tour 2003 this month, playing the National Centre for Early Music in York on Tuesday in the fourth show out of nine.

These friends from either side of the border are giants of the British folk scene and are undertaking this one-off collaboration as a chance to illustrate their approach to music and song through their songs and stories.

Gaughan is Scotland's foremost folk singer and songwriter, while Taylor is a craftsman writer of English songs.

Tuesday's 7.30pm concert is promoted by the Black Swan Folk Club, whose regular Thursday night session at the Black Swan, Peasholme Green, features Damien Barber next week. This traditional singer, guitarist and concertina and melodeon player was born in Norfolk and is based in Yorkshire after a spell in Ireland. Doors open at 8pm and admission is £4.50, concessions £3.50.

Tickets for Gaughan and Taylor cost £10, concessions £8, available from the National Centre for Early Music, tel 01904 658338, or Cassadys Records, Gillygate.

ISLA St Clair sings Scottish songs at Oak House, the Pocklington Civic Arts Centre, on Thursday at 8pm.

The former Generation Game hostess, who first sang in a folk club at the age of ten, will be performing both traditional and modern numbers, spiced with humorous anecdotes of her career as a singer and broadcaster.

A week later, on February 20, she appears at the Black Swan Folk Club, York, where doors open at 8pm.

Tickets for each show cost £7, concessions £6. For Oak House, ring 01759 301547; for the Black Swan, pay on the door.

Updated: 12:22 Friday, February 07, 2003