At the Lewes Saturday Folk Club we run a couple of all-day ballad forums a year which are always well-supported. We get a recognised singer of ballads, such as Brian Peters or Craig Morgan Robson, to lead the day and perform at the club in the evening. Our next forum is with Chris Coe on Sunday 10th. October 2010 and we've just booked The Claque to run one in April 2011.

On Sunday 17th. January from noon - 3.00 pm we have a free ballad session in the Elephant & Castle. This follows the
Sussex All-Day Singaround on Saturday 16th., also run by the Lewes Saturday Folk Club.

Paul Davenport has recently started a monthly ballad session in Sheffield which has its own Mudcat thread.

Well sung, ballads are magnificent and spellbinding. Given that their main ingredients are death, sex and magic, it could hardly be otherwise. There are hundreds in Child which aren't currently being sung; it's very rewarding to research and revive them. Because songs that tell a story are the easiest to learn, their length isn't a problem: once you know the story, the verses offer themselves to your memory in the order that tells the story. (I could never say how many verses there are in any ballad I sing because I don't mentally number them.) If you need to read the words you haven't got properly to grips with the story.

It's kindest to a folk club MC not to sing a ballad just before a guest performer starts their set as he may have assumed that you're only going to take about three minutes to do one song. You might want to say at the outset 'This takes six minutes (or whatever your timing might be) so anyone with a severe thirst or a weak bladder might want to leave now'.

Valmai (Lewes)