Folk - Roy Bailey

Music and politics have never been very far apart for socialist folkie Roy Bailey. Last year he collaborated with 40-year friend and activist Tony Benn to produce ‘The Writing on The Wall’ - “an anthology of dissent in words and music”. It won a Radio 2 award and toured sell-out gigs around the country (including Lewes). Tonight he returns - solo this time - to the Royal Oak. So just what is it that makes folk and politics go together so well? “Folk music is a record of the ordinary people’s feelings”, he says, down the phone line. “It deals with subjects like slavery, peasantry, the labouring man and war and peace. You can recognise the world in the music and use it to reveal things to others”.

Roy was first drawn to the genre with the revival of the Brit folk scene in the ‘60s, from artists such as Ewan McColl and Bert Lloyd. “There was a ready-made audience for it then. You could just get up and sing in the folk clubs”. He was able to stay with the scene largely because he wasn’t relying on making a living from it. (Bailey is also a professor of sociology) “If I’d had to try to break into pop I’d have been someone’s property - this way I have always been able to be my own person”, he tells me. Now retired, he is performing full-time which is quite a novelty. He promises a show with an obvious political message but that will entertain as well. “You have to be able to do that otherwise people just won’t come back, and they have been for 49 years, so I must be doing something right”. ER