Cornishman brought up in Devon in the creative hubs of Totnes and Dartington where he started playing music busking and gigging with local bands Huntersmoon, Waulk Elektrik, Spriggan & Spyka. Later collaborating and recording with Jim Causley then Jackie Oates before moving to the Channel Island of Guernsey, where he now lives.
The band Lihou was launched by the association La Loure from Normandy in 2017, aiming at a present-day rendition of traditional Channel Islands music.
Lihou represents the live performance component of a larger project led by La Loure and the university of Caen aiming to promote field recordings of music and oral traditions collected in the Channel Islands by various organisations between the late 1930s and the 1980s. These sound collections, kept in libraries and archives in France and the United Kingdom, had never been gathered in one place before; most of them had never been heard by the wider public or even by most Channel Islanders. This was accomplished with the publication in 2018 of the book and CD Traditional music & songs of the Channel Islands; published as part of La Loure’s “Sources” collection (https://laloure.org/spip.php?article663). The book/CD represented a snapshot and introduction to this large body of collections and Lihou was formed to showcase some of these works as a physical act in the form of a band.
Lihou has performed concerts on various occasions in recent years, both in the Islands and in France, and during a maritime festival in 2022, it was decided that it was now time to put together a disc of this unique group of traditional musicians from Guernsey, Normandy, Brittany, and England. It was important that the album produced be available both free in streaming platforms as well as physically as a CD for greater coverage all over the planet, helping promote this little-known repertoire as far and wide as possible.
Support and funding was obtained from both the bailiwick of Guernsey and Jersey through The Guernsey Arts Commission and Bailiwick Folk & Roots (an offshoot of the old Sark Folk Festival), The Creative Island Partnership and L’Office Du Jèrriais. Funds were used to produce, record, master and press the album as well as to pay some of the professional fees, and to document the process with videos and photographs. To keep costs down voluntary contributions were generously given in time, accommodation, food, and help, essential to getting this project off the ground. The whole Channel Islands has come together to make this important recording happen, making it a true team effort.