Ian A. Anderson & Friends

Doors 18:00 Show starts 20:00

Ian A. Anderson did the very first paid gig of his six decade musical career in Bristol in December 1965, and celebrates that 60th anniversary on Sunday 7th December at Bristol Folk House.

In the late 1960s he was a regular performer at the legendary Bristol Troubadour and founder of the Folk Blues Bristol & West club. He was heavily influenced by old country blues players before taking a left-swerve in the early ’70s with a trio of songwriter/ guitarist albums for the pioneering and now highly collectable Clifton-based  independent label Village Thing. 

He eventually settled into a personal – and notably English – style, drawing from traditional folk, blues, old-time and world roots musics, making numerous albums by the end of the 1980s with groups Hot Vultures (with Maggie Holland), the English Country Blues Band and Tiger Moth. Then, after a break from live performances in the 1990s to concentrate on other music-related projects, he returned to stages and recording this century, with the trio Blue Blokes 3 (with PiL’s Lu Edmonds and 3 Mustaphas 3’s Ben Mandelson), the duo The False Beards (again with Mandelson) and a very effective double-header partnership with Northumbrian traditional music master Alistair Anderson as Not The Anderson Twins. 

Over the years he’s appeared in multiple guises at most of the UK’s important folk/roots venues and festivals, from Soho’s Les Cousins and the very first Glastonbury to the Cambridge, Sidmouth, Shrewsbury and WOMAD festivals and many more. In the past decade he’s been enjoying performing and recording solo again, with repertoire and tales drawn from across all those years of experience. 

Ian received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Folk Alliance International in 2019, the Gold Badge Award of the English Folk Dance & Song Society in 2015 and the Womex Award in 2010.

His long-awaited book ALIEN?WATER: Six Decades Paddling In Unpopular Music was published this year by Ghosts From The Basement, receiving unanimous praise from reviewers.

See some live solo videos on YouTube:
Black Crow Blues : youtu.be/OrStPf_FJjY
Lord Allenwater : youtu.be/vr9TJr20OD8