News - Pete Coe

Pete Coe - "A One-Man Folk Industry!"

That was how Jim Lloyd, presenter of Radio Two’s “Folk on Two” described Pete Coe. The description has often been adapted to “A one man folk festival” and is very apt as Pete has a vast repertoire of traditional and original songs, dance tunes and dances and plays an array of instruments including bouzouki, melodeon, dulcimer, banjo and step percussion.

Pete was a guest at the Fourth Tenterden Folk Day in 1996 before the event developed into the Festival that it now is and is back this year by popular demand.

Pete has been a professional folk musician since 1971 and looks to the tradition for his inspiration, but also does not shrink from adapting and reinventing the material in order to move forward. He is essentially a storyteller, equally at home with lengthy traditional ballads as he is with pithy self-penned songs. Pete has recorded ten albums, broadcast regularly on local radio and BBC national radio and has appeared in several television programmes. During his long and notable career Pete has frequently worked and recorded with other musicians such as Chris Coe as a duo, with Chris, Nic Jones and Tony Rose as Bandoggs, with the legendary New Victory Band and with Red Shift.

Pete is also a prolific songwriter and his songs include Joseph Baker (performed by The Chieftains), The Wizard of Alderley Edge (an early classic), The Alimony Run (recorded by Token Women), Sold Down the River Again (recorded with Red Shift), The Jackdaw, The Waves of Tory (a comment on the Thatcher Era in Britain), Bring the New Year In (on the new album) and numerous others.

Pete continues to work as a caller with the dance band Raw Material as well as with other local and nationally known dance bands. Pete is involved in presentations and workshops in schools and with the folk development agency Ryburn Three Step in Yorkshire, but his main work is as a solo singer and musician. It is as a solo singer and musician that Pete Coe will be returning to Tenterden Folk Festival from Friday 30^th September to Sunday 2^nd October 2005.

The latest details of the Festival, the full guest list and a ticket booking form is posted on our web site at www.tenterdenfolkfestival.org.uk

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Alan Castle, Tenterden Folk Day Trust, 15 Repton Manor Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 3HA

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Last updated 17^th July 2005