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Chris Foster
is a master of his trade. Alongside
Nic Jones, Dick Gaughan and June Tabor, he established himself in
the 1970’s as one finest interpreters of the traditional ballads
of the British Isles. Chris
has a distinctive voice, deep and clear with a faint overlay of
his native Somerset, and a vocal style that incorporates a subtle
use of decoration with an intricate and exciting sense of rhythmic
patterns. Underpinning it
all is his on-stage persona, with his urbane wit and engaging enthusiasm
for his music that draws the audience into his performance.
Chris
grew up in Somerset, where he first heard and started singing traditional
songs. Following a visual
arts training he became a full-time musician, clocking up 8 years
of continuous touring throughout Britain, Europe and North America. Along the way, he picked up musical influences and songs from traditional
musicians in the coastal villages of East Anglia, intriguing and
unusual songs from the manuscripts of the Victorian / Edwardian
folk song collectors of his native West of England and awards and
critical acclamation for his recorded work in 1977 and 1979.
Then
in the 1980’s he changed focus, dropping out of the folk scene and
settling in Salisbury where he co-founded Mobile Arts, a mixed media
community arts company. Using music, drama, visual arts, oral history
and print, Mobile Arts established a reputation for exciting, original
work, much of which researched, revived and re-interpreted the musical
traditions and customs of the area.
In
the 1990’s Chris moved to the midlands and cast it all back into
the melting pot, re-emerging onto the folk scene with innovative
visual and musical contemporary interpretations of English songs
and traditions in two shows ‘Sting in the Tale’ and ‘Traveller’s
Tales’. He has also been
increasingly in demand as an accompanist on other peoples’ recordings.
His solo CD ‘Traces’, tells compelling stories which in his
own words, “reveal traces of other lives, struggles and times which
I can only imperfectly imagine, but which still resonate powerfully
today.”
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