Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell are a contemporary English folk duo. Although they play some traditional songs, most of the songs they sing are their own compositions influenced by the folk tradition, but also songs by other artists such as Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

, Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...

 and The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

.

Jonny Kearney takes lead vocals, guitar, piano and ukulele; Lucy Farrell plays fiddle, viola and saw

Musical saw

A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...

and adds their harmony vocals. Together they produce a sparse sound described by The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

as “delicate, thoughtful and intimate.”
Kearney is from Hexham

Hexham

Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...

 in Northumberland and Farrell from Maidstone

Maidstone

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...

 in Kent. They met whilst studying on Newcastle University's Folk and Traditional Music course in 2005, where Kearney was awarded the Alan Hull prize for songwriting. Having gigged at folk clubs and festivals, including Green Man

Green Man Festival

The Green Man Festival is an independent music festival held annually in the Brecon Beacons, Wales. It has evolved from a one-day, 300 capacity event in 2003, to a three-day festival with live music including psych, folk, indie, dance and Americana across five stages, as well as DJs playing...

, End of the Road

End Of The Road Festival

End of the Road Festival is an annual music festival in England which focuses on alternative music, mostly folk, alt.country and Americana. It is hosted at the Larmer Tree Gardens, on the border of north Dorset and Wiltshire, and usually takes place over the first or second full weekend in...

 and Cambridge Folk Festival

Cambridge Folk Festival

The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is renowned for its eclectic mix of music and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It occurs...

, they came to the attention of fellow North East England folk musicians The Unthanks. Adrian McNally from The Unthanks produced their first six-song EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 entitled The North Farm Sessions after the farm belonging to Rachel Unthank and Adrian McNally, where it was recorded. The EP, released in May 2010 on Rabble Rouser Records, comprised largely their own compositions with a rearrangement of one traditional song, and met with effusive reviews from The Guardian, Uncut

Uncut

Uncut may refer to:* Without censorship* Uncut , a docudrama about censorship* Uncut , a popular monthly publication based in London* A non-circumcised penis, meaning that the foreskin is intact...

, Q Magazine and MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

. Tracks from the EP were featured on BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

, BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...

, BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

 and BBC 6 Music

BBC 6 Music

BBC 6 Music is one of the BBC's digital radio stations, was launched on 11 March 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years....

 with a Campfire Special session recorded for Rob da Bank

Rob da Bank

Robert John Gorham, known by the pseudonym Rob da Bank, is a British disc jockey. He presents a Friday-night/Saturday-morning show, Rob da Bank, on BBC Radio 1 from 5am-7am, focused on promoting new left field music...

’s Radio 1 show in October 2010.

Support slots on tours by The Unthanks and Bellowhead

Bellowhead

Bellowhead are an English contemporary folk band originally brought together by John Spiers and Jon Boden. The eleven-piece band plays traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide diversity of musical styles and influences...

 followed in 2009/10,, with favourable reviews. In 2010 Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell were nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards

The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2....

' Horizon award which is given to best emerging artists.

Their first full length album Kite, also recorded at North Farm, was released on 10 October 2011. The intimacy of the duo’s sound is still at the heart of the record, but is fleshed out at times by Adrian McNally (Unthanks) on piano, Dean Ravera on double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

, Chris Hibbard on trombone, Paul Ruddick on saxophone and clarinet and Peter Tickell (Peatbog Fairies, Sting, Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell is an English player of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. She has recorded over a dozen albums, and toured widely.-Life and career:...

 Band) on fiddle.

As musicians, they have contributed to a range of other people’s work, including Lucy’s viola and vocals on Emily Portman’s album The Glamoury. Jonny is playing piano on the Unthanks' autumn 2011 tour of Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career...

 and Antony Hegarty

Antony Hegarty

Antony Hegarty is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons.-Early life:...

songs.

Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell have been nominated for an award for best duo in the 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Discography

The North Farm Sessions EP

1. "Hares on the Mountain" (Traditional, arranged by Farrell/Kearney)
2. "Sweetheart" (Kearney, arranged by Farrell/Kearney/Rogers)
3. "Benjamin Brown" (Kearney, arranged by Farrell/Kearney)
4. "To a Boy" (Farrell, arranged by Farrell/Kearney)
5. "Letters to Lenore" (Kearney, arranged by Farrell/Kearney)
6. "Lullaby" (Kearney,arranged by Farrell/Kearney)

Kite album

1. "There’s a Disease" (Kearney)
2. "Just Like the Old Days" (Kearney)
3. "Winter Got Lost" (Farrell)
4. "Green Leaved Trees" (Kearney)
5. "Down in Adairsville" (Traditional, arranged by Kearney/Farrell/McNally)
6. "I Write this Note" (Kearney)
7. "Stand Up Show" (Kearney)
8. "A Dream" (Kearney)
9. "Call Yourself a Friend of Mine" (Kearney)
10. "Swing Low" (Kearney)
11. "Peggy Gordon" (Traditional, arranged by Kearney/Farrell/McNally)
12. "Jack and Jill" (Kearney)

"Green Leaved Trees" digital single

1. "Green Leaved Trees" (Kearney)
2. "Winter Got Lost" (Farrell)
3. "Letters to Lenore" (Kearney, arranged by Farrell/Kearney) (recorded live in Newcastle, 2 October 2011)

External links

• Official website: Jonny Kearney and Lucy Farrell