Handed Down

Handed Down is a celebration of grass roots folk music and traditional songs through the voices and experiences of today’s folk musicians and good old fashioned fireside storytelling.

Before the internet, before newspapers, before even town criers, there were songs. Songs that were passed around from one person to another, from one village to the next, spreading stories of people’s lives, loves and day to day concerns. The best ones were compelling and memorable – funny, or tragic, or just plain catchy. Some went viral and spread rapidly across the country, even crossing oceans only to emerge in different forms.

My name Jenny Shaw, and I’ve been singing and collecting folk songs since I was two years old – or so I’m told! My parents were my first source of material, supplemented by their vinyl albums fresh from the 60s folk revival. People come to traditional songs by many different routes, and we’ll hear some of these stories over the coming years, as well as the stories and history behind the songs themselves.

These are the songs that have been handed down to us. This podcast and the people involved in it help keep them alive so that we can hand them down to future generations.