Late Junction

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Late Junction: Nowt so queer as folk

Nowt so queer as folk

BBC Radio 3 - Late Junction, Nowt so queer as folk

Unearthing and celebrating LGBT+ stories in traditional music with the duo Queer Folk.

Queer Folk join Jennifer Lucy Allan to shine a light on queerness in traditional songs and folk history, sharing archive tunes as well as contemporary artists.

There’s nowt so queer as folk! 

Jennifer Lucy Allan is joined by Queer Folk, aka musicians Sophie Crawford and George Sansome, to dig into the rich queer history of traditional songs and folk music. The Queer Folk project began from the question “LGBTQIA+ people have always existed so where are they in our folk music, song, stories, and dance?” Their work aims to counter the invisibility of queer history and performers in the traditional music world, and the pair have been digging through archives to find traces of queerness - some explicitly queer, some more implicit or coded, and some which they felt were ripe for queering. Sophie and George often perform these songs, give talks, and lead workshops on queer folk music, as well as regular Queer Ceilidh events. They share a selection of their favourite discoveries from the archive as well as some by contemporary folk artists.

Elsewhere, Jennifer plays some more folk music (if you subscribe to the Big Bill Broonzy school of thought that “all music is folk music. I ain’t ever heard a horse sing.”) And, staying in the Pride spirit, there’ll be a track by everyone’s favourite disco cellist Arthur Russell, music from hell courtesy of ‘80s punk band Nervous Gender, and brand new club experiments from Nsasi, part of Uganda's rebellious ANTI-MASS collective. 

Produced by Kit Callin 
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Late Junction

Nowt so queer as folk

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