It’s not unusual for a child musician to change their mind and turn away from their chosen instrument as they enter their teenage years. What you probably wouldn’t expect is for the child to swap his violin for an accordion.
 
“I just loved the powerful sound of a squeezebox in full flight”, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne tells me. “I loved the idea of being able to play tunes with rich and complex accompaniments and countermelodies, which is possible on concertinas and melodeons – not so much on the violin.” The timing couldn’t have been better, as he’d just started to develop an appreciation of English folk songs. “It’s the music that I like, the music that I feel the strongest connection to and the music that has had the strongest effect on me. I love the unusual melodies, the captivating narratives to songs and the fascinating history that comes with every piece.”
 
Barely a decade has passed since Cohen fell for the concertina, the melodeon and the traditional music he plays on them. In that time, he’s won Bromyard Folk Festival’s Future of Young Folk Award, he’s studied with ‘one-man folk industry’ Pete Coe and he’s graduated from the University of Leeds with a BA in Music. These days he’s playing on his own and with the band Granny’s Attic, although it’s the solo Cohen who’s coming to Lewes this month, performing in the evening of Saturday 13th after running a melodeon workshop during the day.
 
“It’s fair to say that I have learnt a huge amount from other players, including John Kirkpatrick, Pete Coe, John Spiers, Brian Peters and Adrian Brown”, Cohen explains. He’s also investigated how concertinas and melodeons were played when they originated around 200 years ago. One such technique involves vigorously moving the instrument in a circle whilst playing it: perhaps the Victorian equivalent of plugging an effects pedal into an electric guitar. “There was a time when just about every concertina player was doing it, but now there are only a handful of us doing it. Essentially the movements through the air alter the sound of the concertina; it’s all to do with the Doppler Effect.”

But Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne isn’t just an exceptionally talented player. He sings as well, with a rich, strong voice that’s well-suited to the traditional music he plays. “I always sang and played around the house, but it took me a while to be able to do it in public”, he admits. “I began singing and playing in public when I was about 17, so about four or five years after I started playing concertinas and melodeons.”
 
Yet all this would probably never have started without those free violin lessons at primary school. “That was my way into music. I honestly think that if they had not been on offer, I probably would not have ended up following this path as a musician.”

Cohen performs at the Elephant & Castle on Saturday 13th. Tickets £7 from the pub or via lewessaturdayfolkclub.org

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 151 April 2019

Back in June 2018, music publicist Del Day and musician Danny George took over Union Music Store from founders Stevie and Jamie Freeman. In some ways, little has changed. It’s still very much the antidote to mainstream online retailing: a local record shop where the owners love discovering new music and sharing their knowledge. Despite this, they’re also happy to order anything you want. “We're not snobs but we've only got a certain amount of space to play with”, Danny admits. It’s what Del describes as a curated approach. “We want it to be a shop where you can pick a record up and we go ‘that's a great record’ and genuinely mean it. It's becoming a little arts hub here for us – and we'd like to extend that.”
 
Look closer and you'll spot a broadening of genres, heralded on my visit by the jazz trumpet of Lee Morgan greeting me as I walked through the door. “Since we moved in we've expanded the range of stock”, Del tells me, “so rather than just being a specialist Americana/country shop, we've now got world, jazz, blues, some classic rock and a lot more interesting left-field records.” You'll also discover loads more vinyl albums – “we're probably 80% new and used vinyl” – and, if you turn up on the last Wednesday evening of any given month, there's a good chance you'll find a session of the shop's Album Club taking place.
 
Album Club is “essentially like a book club”, Del explains, attracting an even mix of men and women. You buy a copy of the month’s chosen album – obviously the shop would appreciate your custom but what’s more important to them is that people obtain a physical copy rather than relying on streaming services – and you listen to it as much as you can. “It's about embracing the art form again and actually cherishing buying the record. And this gives you a chance to reinforce that.” Whoever turns up for the meeting will find the kettle on and beer in the fridge. “We meet in here at 7.30pm, we play back the record and we discuss it for about two hours”, says Del. “It's basically a chance to nourish that artistic element in your head.” There’s no fee and no obligation to stay until the end.
 
Union Music Store has hosted five album club meetings so far, from Damien Jurado to Janelle Monáe. January’s meeting will be listening to Merrie Men, the latest album from supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Yes, it’s a diverse collection – but what’s the point?  Del has a characteristically matter-of-fact answer. “It's a little bit of publicity for our shop, it's a way of embracing the art form, which we think is really important, and it's also a social event. It's immensely enjoyable. I really look forward to it.”

Union Music Store, 1 Lansdown Place, Lewes. unionmusicstore.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 148 January 2019

At the age of fifteen, Thomas Dunford was performing on stage at the Comédie Française theatre in Paris. The Spectator described him as 'a teenage rock star of the lute', while BBC Music magazine made favourable comparisons with guitarist Eric Clapton. So what brings this internationally-acclaimed musician to the 60-seat Lapwing Festival at Cuckmere Haven on Sunday 2nd September? “When people are friendly and the place is beautiful, it's as good for me as being in Carnegie Hall”, Thomas tells me.
 
The lute is often seen as a medieval instrument, although its origins can be traced back much further. However, you’re unlikely to hear a truly original lute being played. “It's one of the most fragile instruments that exists because it's extremely thin”, admits Thomas. “Most instruments that are from the time have to be restored; they don't age like violins. After 30 years, the soundboard gets a little tired.”
 
As well as having a long history, the lute is also more broadly defined than most modern instruments, with the number of ‘courses’ (strings) varying depending on the musical style and the manufacturer’s preference. “The ‘lute’ could mean a six-course lute or a seven-course lute, theorbo or chitarrone [types of long-necked bass lute]… maybe a hundred different ways of playing and making the instrument”, explains Thomas.
 
Innovative interpretation is something Thomas Dunford has embraced. He’s recently formed ‘Jupiter’, a group of musicians who “play baroque music with my own convictions, which are that this music should be not conducted but everybody has to be the composer together.” This is how he believes the music was originally performed. “I think the way baroque musicians would work was closer to what we do now with jazz music, where they improvise a lot. Bach himself was known more as an improviser than as a composer in his time. In order for us to play music by extraordinary improvisers, we have to know what it is like to create music out of nothing because that is what they were doing all the time in the baroque world.”
 
“The lute is one of the most subtle instruments that I know. There are so many possibilities of tone colours – and it's an instrument that asks for silence. You play one note; there's a lot of resonance… and the resonance is always dying out. So it's an instrument that always invites the silence into variety.”
 
Earlier this year Thomas released a CD of music by JS Bach, including some pieces that were originally written for other instruments. “When he writes, you feel that he's not thinking of any technical means, he's thinking in pure musical form”, he says. “That's why Bach works on any instrument. It's the hardest and also some of the most beautiful music.”
 
The Lapwing Festival runs from August 31st until September 2nd at Cuckmere Haven.  lapwingfestival.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 144 September 2018

East Sussex Community Choir is joined by the Corelli Ensemble this month for a performance of three much-loved Mendelssohn works. The programme ends with the symphony-cantata Lobgesang (‘Hymn of Praise’), featuring soloists Dame Felicity Lott, Shona Knight and Paul Austin Kelly. “This is very uplifting music that we're singing”, Dame Felicity tells us. “I love Mendelssohn; he's joyous and raises the spirits.” A Sussex resident since 1980, Dame Felicity fell for the area after performing at Glyndebourne: “I used to love the drive out of London and the sight of the wonderful, rolling, soft Downs.” But what prompted her to fit this particular event into her international schedule? “I thought it would be nice to do something locally, for once. I did a charity concert some time ago with Paul, the tenor, and really enjoyed singing with him.” Not only does Dame Felicity know Paul and musical director Nick Houghton, she’s also very familiar with the music. “I come from Cheltenham, where there's a competitive music festival. When I was a teenager I entered the festival and sang the duet from this with another young singer. It's called 'I waited for the Lord' and I've been singing that all my life.”
 
Saturday 5th May 7.30pm at Lewes Town Hall; tickets £12 from Lewes Tourist Information.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 140 May 2018

Walking into the staff café at Glyndebourne, I find myself surrounded by dozens of excited children who are taking a break from rehearsing a new opera. ‘Belongings’, composed by Lewis Murphy with words by Laura Attridge, compares the lives of World War 2 evacuees with present-day refugees fleeing war zones. As the youngsters return to the stage, Lewis sits down with a coffee. I ask him if there’s a moral to the story. “If there is a moral, it's about learning from history”, he tells me. “It's about openness and human connection. As well as entertaining the audience, I'm hoping we can make them ask questions of themselves.”
 
Glasgow-born Lewis has been Glyndebourne’s Young Composer in Residence since 2015, before which, he admits, “opera was quite new to me”. He’s clearly a fast learner. As well as composing ‘Belongings’, he’s subsequently been commissioned with librettist Laura to write for Scottish Opera. Should we expect more music from the Attridge and Murphy partnership? “Whether we actually brand it as that, who knows. But in terms of setting ourselves up and promoting ourselves as creators of new opera, it’s something we are interested in. We’ve reached a point now where we feel comfortable working together.”
 
This type of collaborative approach runs throughout Belongings. “Lucy Bradley, our director, was involved from the very beginning of the project, talking with me and the librettist about the story and trying to structure the narrative of the whole piece. And Lee Reynolds, our conductor, has also been heavily involved.”
 
Earlier this year, culture and arts project The Complete Freedom of Truth arranged for all four members of the creative team to visit the Italian town of Sarteano and meet young people in a refugee community. Lucy encouraged the community to perform an improvised drama that represented ‘home’. “It was really heart-warming, touching and very humbling for us to see what these guys missed”, Lewis says. “It was the first time we’d actually had direct contact with people who’d been through that situation.”
 
Insight from the trip has been passed on to the 65 members of Glyndebourne Youth Opera, aged between 9 and 19, who are singing alongside three professional singers: Rodney Earl Clarke, Leslie Davis and Nardus Williams. “The production taking shape here looks incredible, so I’m really excited to see what happens.” There’s a special show for schools followed by one public performance – but what next? “I would love to get it performed again”, Lewis says. “I think it is still a very relevant piece for our times. Themes of displacement and people being thrown into a new environment; these have happened throughout history and will probably continue to happen. As soon as you create conflict, people have to move.” 
 
Belongings will be performed at Glyndebourne on Saturday 11 November. Tickets available from 01273 815000 / glyndebourne.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 134 November 2017

Bright new music for the Fading Sun festival
 
Some bands are happy to follow musical trends. Others are determined to set themselves apart from the crowd. 40 Shillings On The Drum is very much in the latter category, as keyboard player Seb Cole explains. “We want to take a new stance on rock music or folk music and give it a new direction.”
 
The band is heading into Lewes – familiar territory for former Sussex Downs College student Seb – as part of the Fading Sun festival at The Dorset Inn on 8th, 9th and 10th September. It’s the fourth year for the free festival, which aims to raise money for the St Peter & St James Hospice, the Starfish Youth Music project and Cliffe Bonfire Society.
 
Although the band’s music is available online, with its latest video receiving more than 25,000 views on Facebook, it’s recently produced a physical EP as well. “I think people prefer something a bit more tangible, something you can hold, look at and put in your car”, Seb says. “There's something nicer about having CDs and vinyl, even though it's less convenient.”
 
I ask Seb about the way the band recorded its songs. “Nothing's put in or created afterwards”, he reveals. “It's all been people in the studio, recording take after take to get the right one. I'm very much one for ‘if you're not able to play it live to an audience then you shouldn't be adding it in to your music’.”
 
As well as playing keyboards and singing backing vocals, Seb also co-writes songs for the band with vocalist Daniel Scully. “Sometimes Dan will have written a set of lyrics but he’ll also have in mind the way that the song would go and the melody of his vocal”. This, Seb tells me, is unusual for a lyricist who doesn’t play an instrument. “It means that you can write song after song very quickly. And every now and then, I'll send Dan a piece of music that I've written specifically for the group and he will put words to it in a more conventional manner.”
 
“We write about where we live, people we know, the experiences that we've had as a group, both good and bad. A lot of the time it's inspiration from the normal day-to-day of what young musicians and bands are going through. Always fighting an uphill battle.”
 
There’s even a hint of battle in the band’s name. Dan borrowed it from a version of the folk song ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, which was rewritten by John Tams for the TV drama series Sharpe. “Before my time”, admits Seb. “Dan suggested it - and we were all perfectly happy with that as soon as it was mentioned. It really stands out as being something different.” As does the band.
 
40 Shillings On The Drum is at The Dorset Inn in the evening of Saturday 9th. 40shillingsonthedrum.uk
 
First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 132 September 2017

Richard Neal, Captain of Southover Ringers

I’ve been captain since March last year. I decide what the band is going to ring and I organise the ringing according to the abilities of those present. Generally we rotate the captaincy; I have had two other three-year periods as the captain.
 
I learned to ring at Ripe when I was 11, so that's 44 years I've been ringing. Bell ringing is very safe. It isn’t true that ringers commonly get lifted off the ground by the bell rope. In all my time I've only ever seen one person go airborne.
 
We've got roughly 25 ringers at the moment, which probably means we are one of the three strongest towers in Sussex for membership. Our oldest ringers are in their eighties and our youngest ringer is about 11.
 
Monday night is the learners’ practice when we use our simulator: it lets you practise the technique but the sound is generated by a computer inside the belfry. Tuesday night is a more advanced practice on the 'open' bells.
 
We ring from 9.30 until 10 on a Sunday morning and from 6 until 6.30 in the evening. Sometimes we do longer pieces called ‘quarter peals’ on a Sunday evening. These take about 45 minutes. We send details of these performances to a magazine called 'The Ringing World', where they are published for other ringers to see and admire.
 
The art of bell ringing is to try and get a rhythmical, evenly-spaced sound from the bells. This is complicated to achieve because each bell is a different size, so it swings at a different rate… and a number of bells have something called 'odd struckness', which means the clapper doesn't swing evenly. A ringer will constantly attempt to compensate for these variables.
 
Here, we've got ten bells. The largest – our tenor bell – weighs over 17 hundredweight [885kg]. The normal number of bells is either six or eight, so we're lucky to have ten.
 
In the late 1500s and the early 1600s, a lot of church bells in England were fitted with a complete wheel on the bell. The bell rope wraps around that wheel, which enables you to turn the bell through 360 degrees and to control the speed of the bell. With a lot of practice, the band can learn to ring mathematical patterns that change the order of the bells. This technique is known as ‘change ringing’: each sequence by all the bells in the pattern is a single ‘change’. It's a very English art.
 
A ‘peal’ consists of at least 5,000 unique changes and takes about three hours to ring. Peals aren't always successful: if a ringer makes a mistake in the pattern and you don't achieve unique changes, you have to stop.
 
Bell ringing exercises the brain and the body together. You ring as a team and everyone is equal in that team, men and women, young and old. You never stop learning.
 
As told to Mark Bridge

TRINITY church, Southover High Street, Lewes

A version of this article was first published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 127 April 2017.
 

“Where’s home?”, I ask baritone Christopher Purves as we sit in the gardens at Glyndebourne. He’s taking a break from rehearsals for The Cunning Little Vixen, an opera that weaves love stories around a forester and a fox. “Apparently it’s in Oxford”, he laughs. “I’ll be back home Saturday afternoon and then back here on Sunday evening, very late. So I get a day and a half at home, which is not enough but that’s just the way it goes. We’re relatively used to it.” These days Christopher sings his way around the world, staying in temporary accommodation when performing in Europe, the United States and Australia. “When the kids were small I would not go abroad, just because I thought ‘this is ludicrous, not being able to see them at all’. I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to ruin my life so completely.”
 
It’s now 20 years since Christopher first came to Glyndebourne as an understudy before returning to perform in 2007, 2009 and – in a ‘truly fearsome and mesmerising performance’, according to Opera Today – the title role in Handel’s Saul last year. “It’s a wonderful thing to have your so-called art appreciated to such an extent”, he admits. “It was the best fun I’ve ever had.”
 
Christopher Purves has been singing since childhood. “I'm the youngest of four boys in the family. I think I had to fight for attention.” As a youngster, he was a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge. In his 20s, he spent several years as part of doo-wop band Harvey and the Wallbangers before heading into opera. But where does the acting come from? “I’ve got no idea”, he tells me. “If you talk to anyone and ask them what they're doing, they'll try and explain it to you in ways you can understand. I think opera is precisely that. We're given scenarios that are rather weird and we have to explain them. It's an extreme version of talking.”
 
His role as the Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen is “quite a soulful man”, Christopher says. “He's not sad, he's not desperately happy, but he's normal. I think a lot of people can understand where his life is going. It’s very touchingly human.” And the internationally-travelled singer who portrays him is equally down-to-earth. “I love being at home. It's an extraordinary thing but it's true. I can take my dog for a walk, I can cook an evening meal, I can spend time talking to my sons – my daughter is away at the moment – you know, just normal life that people take for granted. For me it's such a blessing. But I still enjoy the buzz; I still enjoy the excitement of starting up a new rehearsal period for a new opera. So, I think while that excitement still exists, I will carry on.”
 
Glyndebourne Festival 2016 runs until late August. The Cunning Little Vixen opens on Sunday 12 June. glyndebourne.com

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 117 June 2016

My phone rings. “Hiya Mark, it’s Ruarri Joseph”. He pronounces his first name to rhyme with ‘brewery’, which deals with my first worry. “How’s it going, man?” Truth is I’m slightly star-struck, with a copy of Ruarri’s 2007 debut CD Tales of Grime and Grit in my collection.
 
That first album prompted many favourable comparisons, although Ruarri is cautious about being pigeonholed. “I think somebody once said ‘Dylan, had he grown up in Newquay’ [that was NME], which you can only take as a compliment, but any Dylan fans are going to give you a listen and go ‘what are you on about?’ Similarly, with Atlantic Records, they tried to sell me as the 'British Jack Johnson', presumably because I live near the beach. But again, no disrespect to Jack Johnson, that's not who I am. You're almost turning people away. If they're going to listen to you because of that, then they're going to be disappointed."
 
After his first CD, Ruarri Joseph decided that a contract with a major record label wasn’t right for him, so he recorded his next album independently. "I read somewhere once that I left Atlantic over a dispute because of creative differences. I think that's the story people have tried to paint. I don't recall that being the way it happened.” In 2009 there was a third studio album and in 2012 a fourth, Brother, which was a tribute to his friend Matt Upsher, who died in a surfing accident. I ask how his songwriting has evolved over the past decade. "I went through a time of being very pragmatic around it, certainly with the last solo record, poring over the lyrics and poring over how it came across. It wasn't an album that was for me; I wanted it to tick the right boxes for everybody that knew Matt."
 
The intensity of Brother, combined with its popularity, led to what was billed as the Ruarri Joseph Farewell Tour last year. “I felt like I needed a break from those songs. I'd sung them so many times over the course of three years and I didn't want them to lose meaning”, he tells me.
 
So Ruarri Joseph the solo artist is gone… and Ruarri Joseph the person has adopted a new identity. It’s William the Conqueror who’s currently touring the UK and will be visiting Union Music Store on Record Store Day this month. But is William the man or the band? "I like the ambiguity", Ruarri/William tells me. "Sometimes it's appropriate for it to be me and sometimes it's appropriate for it to be the band. That's just the way it happened. When I first started performing, I was William because I was doing it on my own, but then other people joined."
 
The name was chosen initially so that Ruarri could perform ‘secret’ gigs of new material whilst also touring under his real name. “William the Conqueror seemed like a name that was pretty far away from Ruarri Joseph and wouldn't raise any suspicions that it was me.” It’s not the kind of name I’d have expected a modest chap like Ruarri Joseph to have chosen, I suggest. "There you go. I was right." Since being chosen, the name has taken on more significance. "I realised that Ruarri Joseph had only been putting albums out since he had become a dad. I thought it would be cool to write about my life before that, about my childhood and growing up. William the Conqueror was the kind of name I probably would have given myself as a kid; that insane confidence that you can do anything, go anywhere, the world is your oyster.”
 
As William the Conqueror, Ruarri Joseph is finding songwriting much easier than he did under his real name. “In becoming William, it was a case of letting go and almost subconsciously writing the songs; having something in your mind and just seeing where the guitar takes you or seeing where the pen takes you.” He’s already written enough material for a trilogy of albums. “Maybe one way of looking at it would be that my eight years of being a solo artist have been like a kind of training or a PhD. I feel like I've found my voice since becoming William. The songwriting process makes much more sense to me now; it's like a faucet that's opened up. The energy that you have when you're young, when you first start, it's certainly something I've enjoyed trying to tap into again."
 
So far William the Conqueror has just released an EP, while the first full-length album is nearly finished. The band currently consists of drummer Harry Harding and bass player Naomi Holmes, who'd been in Ruarri’s backing band. “We have a nice chemistry when we play. I've enjoyed writing with their strengths in mind.” The EP is available digitally, on CD and on a 10-inch vinyl record as well. “I’m very excited about that, not least because my friend Tony Plant has done the artwork. It's a bit of a dream to have it done. That's a really lovely idea, to think that somebody is going to take a physical copy of your record and go to the trouble of putting it on. That's the way it should be. You want people to listen to it properly."
 
What music is on Ruarri’s turntable at the moment? “I got into Tom Waits around the time of CDs, so I have everything on CD but not on record. JJ Cale on vinyl is a winner every time. Bowie's Blackstar hasn't really been off the turntable since I got that. A phenomenal record. I'm a little bit out of touch. Maybe it's because I have the kids kicking around with their things which don't necessarily please my ears, so I retreat into the things I know I'm going to like."
 
Yet despite his striving for the perfectly-crafted song and the perfectly-produced album, Ruarri remains a big fan of live music. “When I started, playing a gig in a pub where I didn't have to do anything other than turn up made it all about the music. There's no better way to figure out whether a song is working. It's like a comedian trying out a joke. Playing live is absolutely essential to figuring out who you are as an artist.”
 
Which brings me back to my question about who ‘William’ actually is. After 45 minutes on the phone I think I have an answer. As far as I can tell, William the Conqueror is the man Ruarri Joseph didn’t get a chance to be. “I kind-of fell into the music thing accidentally. It was this crazy whirlwind thing and I never really found my feet with it all. This time round I feel like I know what I'm doing and what I want. I’m really enjoying it. The gigs feel really fresh. I've kind-of forgotten the Ruarri Joseph songs.”
 
Record Store Day is on Sat 16 April 2016; live performances by visiting artists at Union Music Store start from midday. unionmusicstore.com

This is an extended version of an interview first published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 115 April 2016
 

Woodland Guthrie Freeman greets me with a wag of his tail. The dachshund is named after the Woodland area of East Nashville and also for folk singer Woody Guthrie; a double indication that I've come to the right place for the 'Americana' genre. I'm at Union Music Store on Lansdown Place, where Stevie Freeman - co-owner of both the shop and the dog - has been running the business with husband Jamie for the past four and a half years.

Union Music Store was born from Stevie and Jamie's interest in British and American music, their holidays with friends in Nashville and their individual skills: he's a musician and songwriter, while her background is in retail. A dream of running a music shop "one day" became reality much faster than they'd expected, as she explains. "This beautiful little building came empty just as I had sold my old shop and so we thought 'let's do it now'. That's how it started."

The size of the shop forced Stevie and Jamie to think carefully about the music they sold. "It's very small, so we went for the genres that we love: folk, country, Americana. They're all entwined. We started with about 300 records; at the beginning it was mainly CDs but now it's an equal balance of CDs and vinyl." Most importantly, there's room for a tiny performance stage: a feature the duo had seen in Nashville's music shops and wanted to bring to the UK.

Since 2010, they’ve added more room for stock and have launched their own record label. “Again, it's very much to do with our hearts, really, and what we love.” In addition, Stevie has been elected as chair of the Americana Music Association UK, an organisation that's planning to launch the UK's first Americana awards next year and also hopes to introduce an official Americana chart. "The definition of Americana music gets discussed all the time", Stevie tells me. "It's constantly changing." She describes it as an expansion beyond folk and country music, "a bigger umbrella" that covers a spectrum from bluegrass to rock.

To give me a better understanding, Stevie’s been asking other people for their definitions as well. Del Day of Ark PR, a Lewes-based company that specialises in music publicity, also emphasises the broadness of Americana. "I'd say the genre has stretched beyond the confines of just a 'country' connection and incorporates a wide range of incredible music these days", he says. "I think we are gonna need a bigger church!"

But the most emotive description comes from Jed Hilly at the original Americana Music Association in Nashville. “If you can taste the dirt through your ears, that's Americana”, he says. It sounds like Lewes is a good place to get your ears grubby.

Union Music Store, 1 Lansdown Place. 01273 474053. unionmusicstore.com

First published in Viva Lewes issue 106 July 2015.