Description

Sally Barker's Birthday Requests Bash ! 19th September 2020

This is a seated event

Sally is very excited to be holding her Special Birthday Concert on 19th September 2020 near her home in Gilmorton, Leicestershire.

The venue, Gilmorton Pavilion, has a special place in Sally's heart because she spent many Saturday mornings there helping out with Gilmorton Junior Football Club. Sally's boys, Dillon and Ben, played for their respective junior teams and Sally was a qualified football coach as well as doing her stint brewing the teas !

The evening will be a retrospective of Sally's career so far and members of the audience will be able to 'sponsor a song' ie for a small donation of 5 pounds to Sally's nominated charity, they can request a particular song from Sally's repertoire. If you wish to take part, please email office@sallybarker.co.uk so Sally can relearn your choices !!

There will be special 'Birthday Bash' merchandise and a more exciting things announced later !

'For me, it was just full of emotion. It was just so beautiful that I couldn't help myself. You swept me off my feet.'
SirTom Jones
'Sally changes the atmosphere in a room when she sings'
Virgin Radio's Chris Evans

'The emotion and passion in her voice, the vulnerability and fragility of her vocal is an art that not too many singers can master' Maverick Magazine

Sally Barker has been around for decades but her voice just gets better with age... Whether she is singing to seven million on the final of TV's 'The Voice' or to 7 people in a local folk club Sally is the consummate professional. She has the ability to lift the words off the page as if you were hearing them for the first time.

Sally began writing songs and performing at the age of 10, influenced by the likes of John Martyn, Janis Ian, Steelye Span, Bonnie Raitt and Pentangle. By her late teens Sally was performing folk and blues in pubs and folk clubs in the Midlands with bass player Chris Watson. Later the duo went on to support Steeleye Span, Gordon Giltrap and Roy Harper.

Chris moved to London and Sally entered and won the 1986 Kendal Songsearch Competition with her song 'Hunting the Buffalo'. Newly solo, Sally got to be the support to acts such as Richard Thompson, Taj Mahal and Fairport Convention. Solo record deals with Joe Boyd's Hannibal label and the Hamburg-based Hypertension Music followed. Around this time Sally was a founding member of a new exciting the fem-folk group 'The Poozies' with Karen Tweed, Patsy Seddon and Mary Macmaster.

In the early 90's Sally opened for both Bob Dylan and Robert Plant in Germany and toured consistently in Europe during this time, both solo and with the Poozies, releasing albums along the way. By the mid '90s Sally had left the Poozies and had two small children with the idea to concentrate on solo work. Future plans, however, were shattered when her husband Chris was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2003. Sally's 2003 album 'Maid in England', which had been six years in the making (interrupted by 2 pregnancies and her husband's illness), was muted by the death of her husband and she lost the desire to perform her own songs.

As a young widow Sally turned her attention to bringing up her two sons while also studying for a degree in Music Technology. She took to performing Joni's songs in the duo 'Joni Mitchell Project' with piano and dulcimer player Glenn Hughes. Gradually, Sally began to perform her own songs again and in 2006 rejoined the Poozies.

By now teenagers, it was her sons Dillon and Ben who persuaded her to enter 'The Voice UK'. She was Tom Jones' finalist on the BBC TV programme in 2014, reducing Sir Tom, and viewers alike, to tears with her flawless performances. Sally subsequently turned down a £75,000 advance and the opportunity to record a covers album for Universal, choosing to finish the Poozies' album 'Into the Well' and work on songs for her new album, 'Ghost Girl' while continuing to tour both solo and with the Poozies.

A call from Jerry Donahue led to Sally also joining the re-formed Fotheringay (singing the songs of the legendary Sandy Denny) alongside original members Jerry, Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway to promote the 'Nothing More' 2015 released box set.
January 2016 found Sally on tour in Australia and in March she had left the Poozies again. Solo work, touring with Fotheringay, writing and recording the 'Ghost Girl' album plus writing with highly respected American finger-style guitarist and singer/songwriter Vicki Genfan took up the rest of 2016.

The album 'Ghost Girl' was released to coincide with Sally as 'Special Guest' on Fairport Convention's Winter tour 2017 as they celebrated their 50 years on the road. Warmly received by critics and fans alike, FRoots Magazine said 'Sally returns with a classy new solo album full of her matchless singing and exceptional writing couched in contemporary folk, pop, jazz and R&B stylings'.


Since 2002 Sally has toured sporadically with American Vicki Genfan. So their first duo recording 'Under the Shadow of a Small Mountain' was long overdue ! Released late Summer 2017 it garnering excellent reviews.

e.g. 'In the Shadow of a Small Mountain (Small Mountain Records) is the fruit of a collaboration between Britain's Sally Barker, formerly of the Poozies, and the US guitar wizard and songwriter Vicki Genfan. Its warm, low-key storytelling sits somewhere between Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris and Sandy Denny and is every bit as accomplished as that comparison suggests.' James Miller Morning Star Wed 4th October 2017

In August 2017 Sally met multi-instrumentalists Anna Ryder and Marion Fleetwood at Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festival and by the following August the debut CD 'O YEH YEH!' by the indie folk trio they formed, IOTA, was released. 11 tracks of all new material composed by the three ladies received great reviews and radio airplay. 'Three voices that seamlessly combine in rich, fulfilling harmonies with a wealth of instruments to draw upon and create a rich, varied, satisfying sound' R&R Magazine

September 2019 saw Sally release another duo album, this time with multi-instrumentalist Anna Ryder (her buddy in IOTA). The girls also work together in The Sandy Denny Project but a glut of original songs led to the studio and the CD
'When I Wake Up' on which they explore themes of love, nature, gannets on Alderney, football, sea nymphs, St Luke and imagery from fact and fiction.

Sally continues to play live regularly and has recently debuted a new solo show called 'Joni, Sandy & Me'. In this show Sally is delighted to bring some of the songs of both Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny to the stage, interspersed with some of her own, to explore the inspirational singer/songwriter legacy that was forged in the early '70s.

Physical CDs (& Download):


Another Train - The Compilation (2000);
Maid in England (re-release 2014) including the songs 'Dear Darlin' & 'To Love Somebody' (from 'The Voice')
Love Rat e.p. (2015) including the songs 'Walk On By' & 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' (from 'The Voice')
Ghost Girl (2017)
In the Shadow of a Small Mountain (2017) with Vicki Genfan
Oh Yeh Yeh ! (2018) with IOTA (Anna Ryder & Marion Fleetwood) (no DL)
When I Wake Up (2019) with Anna Ryder (no DL)

Download only:
Sally Barker (1988); This Rhythm is Mine (1990); Beating The Drum (1992)
 Favourite Dish (1996)

Description

Kimcote Rd,

Gilmorton,

Lutterworth,

Leicestershire,

England,

LE17 5RR.