Bella Hardy and The Midnight Watch on tour

Bella Hardy by Louis Decarlo 2 (1)

May 24th 2014 was the 73rd birthday of Bob Dylan, and the 195th birthday of Queen Victoria. It’s also acclaimed folk songstress Bella Hardy’s 30th.

To mark the occasion, Bella is taking the party on the road with her band The Midnight Watch, and embarking on an epic adventure to visit thirty of her favourite venues, celebrating her six solo albums to date.

It’s been six years since Bella Hardy found herself nominated in the Best Original Song category at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for Three Black Feathers – the first song she ever wrote.  In those few short years, Bella has become one of the most creative, prolific and original voices on the flourishing UK folk scene, and this February she became BBC Radio 2’s Folk Singer Of The Year.

Growing up in Edale in the Peak District, with a family who sang in the local choir, book loving Bella was drawn to the tales contained in old ballads. But her path to a career in traditional music began with visits to folk festivals, joining a school ceilidh band, and attending the Folkworks summer school in Durham where, aged 13, she joined the sprawling, teenage ensemble The Pack with whom she performed for 10 years – appearing on the main stages of such institutions as Sidmouth, Warwick and Cambridge festivals. In 2004 she entered the BBC Young Folk Award and reached the finals – for which she taught herself to fiddle-sing.

With fiddle in hand, she presents folk songs in the best tradition; not as antiquated museum pieces, but as relevant and very human artworks.  Four time nominee at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and winner of Best Original Song in 2012 for The Herring Girl, her own songs range in subject matter from fairytales to working class history, via childhood nostalgia, myth, murder and the human condition, touching on both the fantastical, storytelling elements of Kate Bush, and the lovelorn song-writing craft of Carole King.

Bella will be playing at the Voodoo Rooms on Thursday 26 June. Tickets £10. Tel no 0131 5567060

For live footage of Bella Hardy & The Midnight Watch visit her YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/bellahardytv

For more information, please visit www.BellaHardy.com