GRAEME MEEK
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Who is this man?			Music CV
Early days			The Traditional Idiom
…and then			Bedfordshire Song
Life & Times			Stories in the Songs
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Who Is This Man?
Graeme Meek is best known today for the work he does with Barry Goodman as the duo Life & Times and as the bass guitarist of dance band Time of Your Life. However, he is also available as a solo performer presenting songs from the tradition and songs he has written in the traditional idiom. A good well-rounded performance is what you can expect when you book him for your club or festival, the result of years of experience of working with audiences the length and breadth of the country from Hartlepool to Wadebridge. Strong choruses feature strongly so expect to sing! Graeme is a member of the E.F.D.S.S.				Click here to find out what instruments I play.
Early Days
Graeme Meek is a singer and songwriter who has been around on the folk scene for longer than he cares to remember (or probably longer than he CAN remember!) He began singing and playing a battered old acoustic guitar in 1970 and progressed from there to playing the electric bass guitar. As is often the case with young lads of his age he took up playing rock music. In those days he worked with Steve Poore (now guitarist with dance band, Time of Your Life), Rob Armstrong, Doog Moody (now of Greenbank Studios in Luton) and Peter Salt who went on to join Time of Your Life with Graeme and Barry in the early 1990s. Another early band included Paul Young who later went on to great international success in a very different musical field! In college days he also went on to work with Henry Thomas who later featured in the BBC2 programme Rock School!				Festivals that have booked Graeme Meek as a solo performer: Broadstairs Poynton Luton ECMW
…and then
Graeme formed MIDAS with singer and recorder player Debra Arthurs in 1977 and together they performed their mix of traditional and contemporary songs around the clubs mainly in the south and midlands, straying more towards the tradition as time went by. They appeared on the bill of the Silver Jubilee Sidmouth Folk Festival in 1979. Before the duo broke up in 1980 they were including some of Graeme’s traditional idiom songs in their set. He began singing solo again until joining forces with melodeon player, Barry Goodman, and flautist, Greg Lindsay, in 1983 to form Life & Times. From 1985 to 1991, together with Phil Richards, he presented Three Counties’ Folk on BBC Radio Bedfordshire (Now BBC Three Counties’ Radio).				Festivals that have booked Midas: Sidmouth Alford
Life and Times
Originally Life & Times was formed out of one solo performer and an already existing duo, Vermin, which consisted of Barry Goodman & Greg Lindsay. Life & Times recorded its first LP with Fellside Recordings in 1984. Strawplait & Bonelace sold out in vinyl very quickly and set the trend for Life & Times’ music. Typical of the localised content of many traditional songs and broadsides, the songs and music on the recording all had connections with local Bedfordshire stories, history and legend; a theme which would reappear later in their career. In 1988 they recorded their second LP with Fellside, Shropshire Iron. This chronicled the industrial revolution in the iron industry of Shropshire in the 18th century. Following Greg’s departure and a period of less activity around the clubs, Life & Times became resident performers at Hitchin Folk Club, one of the country’s longest established folk venues, having started life in the 1960s. In 2001 they put together a collection of their newer Bedfordshire material on a new CD entitled Charivari. The CD was very well received, notably by fRoots who remarked of the songs… …and pretty fine they are too, for you’d swear that many of them were actually traditional It is a strange but true fact that the ultimate accolade in folk song is not to be recognised for the songs one has written!!! For more details about Life & Times including recordings etc. click here. My songs have been performed by John Kirkpatrick and Carolyn Robson and Carolyn has recorded the song The Ghost of Lady de Grey on her CD Dawn Chorus which is available on Reiver Records RVRCD03. You can hear it at her website. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Barry Goodman has been Graeme’s music partner in Life & Times since 1983 and Time of Your Life since 1984. Barry plays Saltarelle and Excelsior melodeons, a self-built one-row melodeon, English concertina and acoustic guitar. He is a long time member of Ampthill, Bedfordshire’s Redbornstoke Morris and the Outside Capering Crew who appear on Ashley Hutchings and friends’ CD Grandson of Morris On as does Barry’s tune Four Up. Barry’s songs Ampthill Sunrise and All In The Wintertime and tune Newtown Jig appear on the Life & Times’ CD ‘Charivari’. Several of his songs appear on Life & Times’ CD ‘Where The Working Boats Went’. John Kirkpatrick once described Life & Times as ‘Always good value’ and said they had a ‘…well-oiled set’. We knew what he meant!				Festivals that have booked Life & Times: Sidmouth Shrewsbury Fylde Bromyard Chippenham Towersey Broadstairs Bracknell Durham Warwick Cornwall Cheltenham Shepley White Horse Woburn Sands Wath Bedworth Ely Raunds St Neots Tenterden Ledbury Poynton Summerfield All Folk Around The Wrekin Nettlebed Stanford-in- the-Vale Walton Mid Wales St Albans Dunstable Holford Arms Harrow Folk East E.F.D.S.S. M1 Folk Day Luton Back to Top

Graeme Meek