Writings

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2010

Musician of the Year

John Kirkpatrick's Acceptance Speech

This is fantastic! I didn't think I was glitzy enough to register on the Academy's radar for anything like this, and I am delighted.

At an event like this at the showbiz end of the folk scene, where we are drawing attention to the cleverness, and audacity, and raunchiness of our technical expertise, I would like to chip in with a word about dancing. I began playing because I was dancing with a Morris team, and I still passionately believe that this music is like it is because the dancing makes it like that. This music is at its most vibrant and most triumphantly alive when there are people there in front of you dancing to it.

So I'd like to give an honourable mention to the thousands of dancers - country dancers, ceilidh goers, morris dancers, sword dancers, clog dancers, and the rest - and all the musicians and bands associated with them, who may not have particularly high artistic aspirations, but they gather every week to do their best to keep all this alive. Sometimes they're breathtakingly wonderful, and sometimes they're breathtakingly awful, but they are keeping the engine fired up and running for the rest of us, and amidst all this tinsel and glitter, I hope we don't forget that other side of the folk scene, because without it I wouldn't have done the things I've done, and I certainly wouldn't be receiving this award this evening.

Thank you very much!

I rejoice!!!

Written by John Kirkpatrick, and delivered on his behalf at the Folk Awards event by Eddie Upton, Director of Folk South West.