Fans mourn a folk favourite
The folk scene in Kent has lost one of its most iconic movers and shakers with the death last week of Simon Evans.
The Simon Evans Folk Show on BBC Radio Kent had become an important vehicle for promoting local musicians as well as keeping abreast of the latest and best on the national folk scene. Simon’s eclectic tastes in both the mainstream and the culturally diverse musical movements always provided an interesting listen.
Mr Evans, aged 61, lived in West Peckham and has three children, Jim, Nancy and Robin.
He took over from Martin Harris on Radio Medway’s Folk for Folke in the Seventies with co-producer Charlie Jacobs and together they managed to make a programme that totally reflected the burgeoning folk scene of the Seventies and Eighties.
On a personal note, I was there for the first ever live nude folk singer interview in the early eighties and he also recorded my comedy album ‘Shredded Wit’ at the Medway Little Theatre in 1987.
Simon went on to more exotic things with the BBC producing some excellent programmes on gypsies and gypsy traditions for Radio 3 and Radio 4. He worked extensively with gypsy and Romany singers and, as well as recording some interesting source material from traditional singers, he also produced an exhibition of photographs cataloguing travellers’ everyday lives.
The morris and ritual dance was another of Simon Evans’ passions and in addition to dancing with Hartley Morris and White Star Longsword Dancers he was a competent concertina player.
At one time or another almost every Kentish folk performer will have been recorded or had their CD played by Simon – either at the BBC studios or in his home studio environment in West Peckham – and he was also proactive in outside and field recordings of singers and traditions.
Doug Welch continues the Sunday night programme which Simon managed to keep despite various BBC cuts over the years and does an excellent job in promoting folk music in Kent. There will be, however, a large void left from somebody who did so much for local folk fans in his own quiet and effective way.