Willow Festival has plenty of soul

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During the latter 70’s and early 80’s, Peterborough was heralded as a mecca for soul and jazz funk enthusiasts.

To honour this successful period in music, The Willow Festival has invited The Edwin Starr Band with Lorraine Silver to play a set packed full of northern soul classics.

Entry to The Willow Festival is free and it will run at Peterborough’s Embankment from Friday to Sunday, May 25 to 27.

Chief festival organiser, Mark Ringer, said the decision to make it a soulful weekend was made in part with former Peterborough promoters S&M - Tony Scibelli and Stef Malajny - who went on to become the proprietors of the Papa Luigi group.

Mark added: “I remember well Peterborough being talked about far and wide at that time and attending many S&M promotions.

I wanted to recapture some of the atmosphere of that period at The Willow Festival in 2012 and with having Tony and Stef on board it just seemed a great idea.

“I booked The Edwin Starr Band and had a chance meeting - while doing a live show with the band Burning Codes on BBC Radio - with Lorraine Silver, who is a legend in northern soul circles and this led my putting together a soul based headline show for the festival.

“We already had the awesome Soft Tone Needles, Motor City Vipers and Groove Cartel signed up, among others in the soul and funk genre, and it seemed a good way to go”.

Both Tony and Stef are helping to co-promote the festival alongside representative from Peterborough City Council.

The S&M team first put a Tamla Motown event on at the South Grove Community Centre back in 1977. The group soon became well known for its great variety of live promotions.

Stef said: “The chance to get involved with a huge festival was far too good an opportunity to turn down. We were only too pleased to give up our time free of charge to organise a great event.”

Tony added “What is so nice about today’s music is how it really has been influenced by the seventies scene. Don’t miss out, get down and have a wonderful time.”

The Edwin Starr Band with guest Lorraine Silver will perform on the Sunday afternoon. For further information on this year’s line-up visit www.willowfestival.org.uk.