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There's a lot more than rock bands coming out of South Yorkshire. It's also the centre of English folk music. Roy Bailey, Pauline Cato, Dave Burland, Crucible, Hekety and James Raynard have all called Sheffield home for a long time.

Jon Boden of Spiers &, and guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson have moved here, and within a loud hail of the city you can find Kate Rusby, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, John Tams, and the Guv'nor himself, Ashley Hutchings. The city is buzzing with folk music.

Local roots

It's an area with a long and glorious history. Local traditions, once the backbone of a community, remain alive here. Take longsword dancing, for example; it can still be seen every Boxing Day in Grenoside and Handsworth, suburbs that were once villages outside the city.

Crucible

Or, perhaps best known and documented, are the Sheffield carols. Those emerged at the end of the 19th Century, when the common carols were suppressed by the Victorian church, to be replaced by the gingerbread we know today.

A fair amount of the credit for the folk renaissance, however, goes to Sheffield University Folk Society. "They used to run sessions and maybe have a ceilidh about once a month," remembers clarinettist Jo Veal, who plays with Hekety and Klezmer group Minnie Moosika. "They held the dances in the student union but it was expensive for them to rent."

"They had a bit of a revamp in 1993," recalls Crucible's Jess Arrowsmith. "By the time I came in '95 they'd re-launched themselves as the Ceilidh society, and they were organising a session every week and a ceilidh every two-three."

The ceilidh scene is important, but so are the pub sessions of tunes and songs. A quick glance at a local folk bible, Stirrings, reveals 41 of them at pubs like the Kelham Island Tavern, Hillsborough Folk and Red House – a staggering amount. The only downside, declares Jon Boden, "Is that there are so many sessions in different places that it's hard to keep track of them all."

Yet out of this emphasis on doing, on sitting and playing and taking an active musical part, has come a curious little anomaly: within Sheffield itself, the usual kind of folk club, with guests, artists and floor singers, simply refuses to thrive [although places like the Rockingham Arms in Wentworth do great business].

Roy Bailey

All this woodshedding has given the musicians quite formidable chops, and a huge repertoire. Perhaps most importantly, playing sessions and dances has given them confidence. Certainly it's been vital to Crucible and Hekety, both of whom have been garnering great press, along with James Raynard, whose emergence has been causing waves.

"There's healthy competition," notes Crucible's Richard Arrowsmith. "Some of us going into the wider world are pushing each other. Once people see someone go out and do it, others want to. And at the moment it’s happening, and there are plenty of names people aren't familiar with yet who are waiting to take the next step up the ladder."

Folk music is going through one of its hip phases, and Sheffield is perfectly poised to take advantage of that. But maybe, as the dean of local folk musicians Roy Bailey comments, "To me the more interesting question is why is it now that what we have been doing for many years is being noticed and is worthy of being commented upon?"