Scottish singer and guitarist Dick Gaughan is just as strong and inspirational as when he started out, over 30 years ago.  Gaughan grew up steeped in the music of the Gaels with his Scottish and Irish ancestry. Both parents were musicians - his mother a singer and his father a fiddle player - and he started playing an instrument when he was seven years old.

His first solo album won him a Folk Album of the Year award, and almost twenty years later in 1989, Folk Roots Magazine voted his album, A Handful of Earth, Album of the Decade. In 2005, Dick was nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year Award.

Restlessly imaginative, passionate in his beliefs, guitarist Dick Gaughan is a commanding presence on the musical scene. His subtle singing and intricate guitar playing create a fabric of arresting beauty and colour.

You go home from a Dick Gaughan session feeling exhilarated, not just at the wonderful skills of the most potent singer ever to emerge from the Scottish folk-music revival, not just at the astonishingly fluent and explosively eloquent guitar playing, but by the sense of the stark exposition of wrong and the tremulously argued legitimacy of right.

"One of Britain's most innovative and contemporary voices."  
Boston Globe

"There are very few singers who can inspire audiences with the commitment, passion, emotion and downright understanding that Gaughan has consistently achieved over the last 30 years or so.  A truly masterful performer."  
Folk Roots

"Commitment. Passion. Honesty. You'll rarely find a review of a Dick Gaughan recording or concert that doesn't come up with one of these terms"  
Living Tradition

Special guest this show (a change from first advertised) is Ruth Notman, who reached the 2006 finals of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards and shortly afterwards signed a record deal. Threads was released in November 2007 and created quite a stir, receiving great reviews including 4 Star reviews in The Guardian and Mojo Magazine and airplay on many local and national radio stations including BBC Radio 2 and 3. Ruth's pure and powerful voice conveys stories of love, loss, adventure and heartache, weaving through simple stripped down ballads and soaring above complex arrangements.

"A new voice in British Folk" The Independent - ALBUM OF THE WEEK

"Fantastic, really special... I was just totally blown away." Kate Rusby 

"Hard to see how she can fail." ****Mojo 

"What sets Notman apart is the disarming beauty of her voice" ***** Rock n Reel