ALL BLACKED UP

All Blacked Up play music from a wide range of sources as well as numerous of their own compositions.

At the core of the All Blacked Up set is English traditional music and the band thinks of itself as being very close to what might be called the 'source' players of traditional English Country Music such as Scan Tester, Walter Bulwer, Billy Bennington etc. We are however a second generation revival band having learnt our English music from those who 'sat at the knees' of the last players from the truely unbroken English tradition, and therefore as well as recordings of the 'old' players vinyl records such as the Old Swan Bands 'No Reels' or from 'Flowers and Frolics' were highly influential when Baz and Alistair [and Paul, the founding lead melodeon] were learning their music.

Being born out of a morris dance team and with 5 of us having either danced or played for morris teams we take the fitting of the tune to the dance very seriously. This is a more subtle skill than it might sound and we are very pleased to have received plaudits from a number of high profile callers who danced to us at Chippenham Folk Festival in 2010 - they said [in their various ways] that the fit of tune to dance was perfect. Of course thanks to Nick Walden who was our caller at that event.

 All Blacked Up combine melodeons, saxophone, recorders and harmonicas with electric instruments and drums without being an over loud band and we like to think that one of our ceilidhs is as good to listen to as to dance to.

The Jukebox above contains two tracks from the bands second Cd 'Spirits of Another Sort' and two from the third and latest 'A Thousand Twangling Instruments' which is available from our recordings page.