A NEW year of folk begins, and looking at the list of coming attractions for the months ahead, it looks like being another great adventure in music for local audiences over the next 12 months.

Highlights this week include The Mighty Doonans, making their annual January appearance at Washington’s Davy Lamp on Saturday. On Sunday, Pete Morton is at Guisborough Rugby Club, while I have my own annual appearance at South Shields Customs House that same evening, with a 7.30 start. On Monday, the Fishburn legend Bert Draycott is centre-stage at The Iron Horse in Newton Aycliffe, the first guest of what looks like being a splendid musical year for that venue. On Tuesday, Chris and Steve Wilson will be taking over the long-running Britannia Folk Workshop in Darlington, so get there nice and early to this cosiest of venues to join in the fun.

One piece of sad news over the recent festive period was the sad loss of Mike Elliott, who was known to many as Mike The Mouth on a local radio talk-show, but folk fans in the region will remember him as a leading light on the local scene for many years. As a member of Northern Front, along with Ed Pickford and Nick Fenwick, Mike was a popular fixture at clubs and festivals in the early 1970s, and indeed ran clubs himself in Sunderland and later Seaton Carew, before his comedy skills pulled him in another direction. I remember him as a great ballad-singer too, and his political activism stayed with him throughout his life.

Politics will be very much at the forefront of peoples’ minds in the months ahead, of course, and folk music has always had a part to play as an alternative to mainstream posturing. Let’s hope it stays tuneful and entertaining, but makes a lasting impression that will change things for the good.