NOBLEFOLK AND COMPANY (1984 – 1989)
A weekly folk club I ran at Noble’s Bar in New Road, Brighton. This was a cider bar owned by Iris Noble and we had the upstairs room which could just about hold 30 people…anybody in the know would get in the door by 10.55pm…we had lots of fun here and collected enough club funds to pay for two guide dogs for the blind and one video recorder for the deaf.
NOBLEFOLK then moved to NASH’S HOTEL in a cellar bar on upper Brighton seafront (1989 – 1990) …here I was helped co-host with AH and RH.
FOLK AT THE ELEPHANT (1990 – 1992)
A fortnightly folk club I ran at The Elephant and Castle pub in Lewes. Very popular club with at least 60-80 audience most clubnights and 120 on Guest Nights. Many famous folk celebs performed here including Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, Paul Metzers, Andy Irvine, Pete Morton, Eric Bogle, and many more.
HANBURY FOLK (1992 – 1993)
Another weekly folk club at The Hanbury Arms Pub in Kemp Town, Brighton. This was an interesting venue with strange acoustics. This venue was originally a mausoleum for the Sassoon Family!
THE WIZARD FOLK CLUB (1994 – 1996)
A monthly folk club at The Prince Albert Pub, underneath the arches at Brighton Station. We had the upstairs room here with a stage and comfy settees too. Many guests came here too the last being Les Barker.
THE HARBOUR SESSIONS (2000 – 2005)
This monthly club (which I co-ran with JC) was at The Schooner Inn, Southwick. We had a lovely 4 years worth of famous guests including: Diz Disley, Derek Brimstone, Jeremy Taylor, Lee Collinson, Wizz Jones, Steve Tilston, Mary Flower, Anna Ryder, Steve Knightly, John Renbourne…and the list goes on.
I then went off the scene for a few years until at the end of 2017 when I was locally asked to run another music session so I re-started :
THE HARBOUR SESSIONS FOLK CLUB on the second Sunday of the month starting January 2018. This club started at The Schooner Inn, Southwick and after a few months moved to The Gather Inn at Hove Lagoon where it has been ever since. I ran the club as a session Come-all-ye and was delighted to see, as well as lots of new, many old faces from the folk scene. During those two and a quarter years we managed to raise and donate £1000 to The Guide Dogs for The Blind Association in 2018, £1000 to The Martlets Hospice in Hove (in memory of Stuart Reed) in 2019 and from August 2019 to March 2020 we raise and donated £740 to the Alzheimer’s Society.
Coronavirus has forced us to abandon our monthly meetings for the time being so we are all looking forward to this club’s resumption as and when it is possible.
I do have many pictures of so many lovely people involved with the above folk clubs and if you were on the Sussex Folk Scene from the mid 1980s then you will probably see yourself in many of my photos in my PHOTOGRAPHY section of this website.