Two generations of UK Folk. Oh, the stories...
Joe Broughton likes to play varied crowds. Here's a clip of his Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, shot on Monday 25th. Joe took his 68-strong troupe to blast bleary-eyed morning and evening commuters at New Street station; it was part of Birmingham City University's open day.
Audience numbers? Who knows, but maybe ten thousand people passing through the station caught the blast.
Dig around on YouTube and the like. You'll see Joe with his Urban Folk Quartet, one of the finest Folk outfits the UK has right now. There are festival gigs filmed in Europe in front of audiences in their thousands. That's before you pick up on the specialist fiddle masterclasses, or his own one-day festival, Power Folk, at The Spotted Dog in Digbeth.
And in a couple of weeks he's playing the 60-seater Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath with long time friend and collaborator Kevin Dempsey. So is the Dempsey / Broughton gig likely to sell out? I would expect so.
