The Black Swan on Stonebow, inside the city walls but with village pub vibes, feels like the perfect location for this festival of friends: the City of York Folk Festival. I popped in on Saturday late afternoon and into the evening to check it out.

Review and Photos by Stuart Duthie

As I walked there, I could hear a heavenly sound floating up Aldwark. This was from Chechelele warming up in the foyer of the Hiscox building a few yards from the Black Swan.

They were the first band I saw, an acapella world music choir from York. As they sung their sunny songs from places such as Croatia, France, and various countries across Africa they persuaded some brightness to break through the dark clouds. It was all very uplifting stuff. This was the last act to perform outside for the day and (based on the conversations I overheard) “there were some quality acts” during the afternoon.

Unfortunately, I missed the first act in the evening, so my first was Toni Bunnell. I didn’t quite realise the significance of her statement in relation to her first song, “you can relax now because the first one doesn’t have a chorus.”  For her second song, entitled 5 at the Table, she explained the chorus and it became evident audience participation is not as much encouraged as expected.

Next, we had Paul Cullen with his ukulele and songs evocative of a different era of smoky back-to-backs and the music-hall days. He brought this right up to date with his last song all about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s fall from grace which bought plenty of chuckles from the audience.

Next was a change of style and sentiment from Peter Lister. He opened with a song about the joy of being alive during COVID and then brought us back to contemporary worries about the deterioration of the oceans – all set to lovely acoustic riffs and a lovely cover of James Taylor’s song for Joni Mitchell You Can Close Your Eyes. “Nice!” shouted someone in the audience amongst the applause and they were right.

Peter invited Judith Haswell to join him as a segue into her set with The Love Will Carry Me accompanied by the whole audience. Judith carried on right to the end through her set and into Ramshackle – an ensemble act that closed the night.

People try and suggest that community is dead but that is clearly folklore based on tonight, with lots of “bye byes” and “see you tomorrows” at the end of the evening and an audience made up of many artists there to celebrate the music and support each other.