Ian A Anderson: ‘I hope that Cambridge Folk Festival manages to come back’

Ian A Anderson, who has been heavily involved in the British folk music scene for many years, has published a book about it, titled Alien Water: Six Decades Paddling in Unpopular Music.

Having been a regular at the Cambridge Folk Festival in the early days, Ian, who is originally from the West Country, moved to Cambridge from Bristol a few years ago. Before that he was living in London.

From the mid-1960s onwards, Ian has worked as, among other things, a touring and recording musician, broadcaster, writer, festival and concert organiser, tour manager, and perhaps most notably was the founding editor of fRoots (Folk Roots) magazine for 40 years.

“People just kept urging me to write a book with tales from everything I’ve done,” he explains, “because I have an overview, I suppose, that not many people have.

“I’ve been involved in so many aspects of the folk and world music scene, as well as actually doing stuff myself.

“And so when the magazine finally stopped in 2019, I was about to get down to it and do it [write the book] and then Covid came along and I got completely demotivated.

“During that time we moved to Cambridge and by the time all the moving business was over, I finally got down to it – it took me about a year and a half to write.”

The book was made possible thanks to a well-supported Kickstarter campaign that broke its target within the first 24 hours, and Ian’s personal overview of the folk, roots, and world music movements in his lifetime was independently published at the end of March.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Ian’s first-ever paid gig. “That was one reason I wanted to get it out this year,” he notes.

He says of the book: “There will be a lot of things in there that people don’t know went on behind the scenes, stuff that happened in all aspects, from the world music scene to festivals to the world of radio, publishing, all sorts of things… I have it all joined up – that’s the important thing.

“A lot of people tend to think of the folk scene, for example, working in isolation, below the radar and not really part of the music business – which is true to some extent, but it does actually link up with a lot of other things down the years.”

This year is also the 60th anniversary of the first Cambridge Folk Festival, an event which holds a special place in Ian’s heart.

“I think the first one I went to was 1970, the first one I was booked at as an artist was ’71 or ’72,” he recalls, “and like a lot of people back then, when it was small, you tended to end up doing things like MCing the Club Tent and stuff like that, in which you’d meet an awful lot of interesting characters…

“I played it a lot in the 1970s, and then for a long time it clashed with both WOMAD [World of Music, Arts and Dance], when that started, and Sidmouth Folk Festival, so I tended to vary which I went to each year.

“So I didn’t come to Cambridge as much I had in the early years, when it was almost like the one and only big festival that was going on out there.”

He adds: “There’s a fair bit in the book about Cambridge down the years, different things that have gone on that people might or might not know about.”

Ian believes that “one of the shames” about the Cambridge Folk Festival in recent years is that it “hasn’t reflected all the good stuff that’s going on on the English [folk] scene”.

He elaborates: “I mean look at the last one last year – there were about 20 Scottish artists on and a lot of Americans. Very strange. It seems to have lost its mojo.”

Was Ian surprised when this year’s Folk Festival was cancelled?

“No, not at all,” he admits, “there’s been a lot of stuff in the paper about why it’s lost money and yes, festivals on the whole are suffering a hard time because of the increase in costs, because of Brexit and Covid and all that stuff.

“But there’s been very little mention of the direction of it; I mean since Eddie Barcan stopped doing it, whenever it was – 2018, 2019 – it’s really lost its direction, I think.”

Ian, who says he “pops along quite regularly” to the Black Fen Folk Club these days, adds: “I just hope that Cambridge Folk Festival manages to claw its way back.

“But they do need to sort out the programming, the artistic side, I think, because once upon a time it was the biggest, the most popular folk festival in the country because it was exemplary what it did.

“It used to sell out every year; there used to be a scrabble for tickets and they’d sell out within a day or two of going on the market.

“That doesn’t happen anymore and they really need to look at the reason for that – which could start with looking at some of the other successful festivals, like Shrewsbury and FolkEast, and see what it is they’re doing.”

Alien Water: Six Decades Paddling in Unpopular Music by Ian A Anderson is available now.