´óÏó´«Ã½

I heard some very sad news over the holidays, one of the main men of the second wave of the Folk Revival, , died of inoperable cancer on Christmas Eve.

Many of you will know Tim from the work he did around the folk clubs in the early 60s with his then partner and many more of you will know him from because Tim and Maddy were amongst the founder members of that most amazing electric folk group.

With Maddy he toured the folk clubs of these islands and produced some cracking albums - Folk Songs of Olde England Vols 1 and 2 and Summer Solstice. With Steeleye he toured the world and made a clutch of albums that actually changed the way many people looked at folk music. As he once pointed out, if the folk musicians of old had Telecasters along with fiddles and concertinas, they would have played them too.

In the late 80s he fell in with cancer for the first time and moved to La Gomera, a small island in the Canaries. He performed rarely in the UK after that. I was lucky enough to spend time with him when he came back to perform with Maddy at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Electric Proms in October 2008. He seemed in great form, and I can still see that wry smile on his well tanned face as he finished one of his songs to a massive applause and it came to him that the crowd were welcoming him back.

I know that he was very touched by his reception that night.

He had a fine voice, a great way with a song and a true love of English traditional song; in those early albums he brought to light songs which are now standards in the folk tradition. If you haven't heard the early albums Tim did with Maddy they are well worth searching out.

There was a family funeral on La Gomera on the 9th of January (which would have been Tim's 62nd birthday) and there will be a memorial service in St Albans later in the year.