25 Sep 04 - 08:47 AM (#1280675)
Subject: Swarbaid (Dave Swarbrick Benefit)
From: treewind
I've started a new thread, because the other one is about the first Swarbaid Event and I want to give this new venture more publicity.
Here's Alistair Hulett's press release:
The folk scene in Britain is mustering its vast numbers to support one of its most well loved luminaries. Fairport fiddler Dave Swarbrick, who suffers from chronic emphysema and is currently housebound while he awaits an operation, is the focus of a nation-wide mobilisation of concerned fellow musicians. Over the next few months, Operation Swarb Aid will be staging benefit concerts all over the UK to help tide one of its heroes over till he's back out on the circuit again.
Swarbrick's much publicised illness resulted in a highly flattering but hilariously premature, full page obituary in one of the national broadsheets a few years ago. Since then the obituary has featured as a question in the BBC's University Challenge and provided considerable mirth around the folk clubs and festivals where Swarbrick is a living legend.
However the breathing difficulties that afflict the musician are serious enough to have prevented him from undertaking any public performances for many months, and Operation Swarb Aid is a grass roots, national response to that situation.
Co-ordinated by the folk artists' network Britfolk, the organisers are drawing together a growing army of Swarbrick's admirers and friends, who plan to turn Operation Swarb Aid into a UK-wide fundraising tribute to the fiddle maestro known all over the world simply as Swarb.
Dates are already being set for the concerts to begin in December, and details of concerts from one end of Britain to the other will be listed at http://www.swarbaid.org.uk
I'd like to hear from anyone who's able and willing to help in anyway. Visit the website and see what you can do.
Anahata
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