Derbyshire-born folk singer Blair Dunlop brings it all back to The Greystones, Sheffield, as he heads back out on the road

Originally from Chesterfield, the local lad has been on quite the journey, from a young career both on stage and screen. His life has taken a different pathway, with food reason.

“I realised from a really young age that I wasn’t going make it as a footballer," he intones with a laugh, “I came from a family of musicians, where I always loved to play and sing.” — his mother is the folk singer Judy Dunlop and his father is Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention fame.

“Every school show that I could play at I would do. As soon as I left school, I thought to myself ‘can I make money doing this? Well, yeah.’ So I started playing folk clubs and the odd support slots here and there.”

“After a year or two I started doing a bit more, and then I recorded a record. Then it all took off from there.”

Blair’s debut album, Blight & Blossom, won the coveted Horizon Award at the 2013 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, which is no small feat. Added to this his debut EP, released in 2010, is now a collectors item. The plaudits have come in aplenty for this young man, Q magazine proudly declared the Derbyshire-born songsmith a “vital bridge between Brit folk’s first and latest flowerings.”

High praise and well deserved it seems. But Blair doesn’t put too much stock in awards.

“It is important to get awards, but it’s not the reason we get into making music. It’s all quite subjective at the end of the day.”

“But I understand that it is necessary that there’s a cachet to it all. At the end of the day, it’s helped me get on and it’s a helpful thing. But I don’t personally put too much importance to it. Of all of the validation to receive, if there’s one area that I do enjoy… it’s peer recognition.”

So, what will he bringing to his tour?

“There will be a lot to be fair. The live record (Queensland) was the last record that I toured around Australia just before the lockdown. I needed a record, something to tide me over while we all lost all of our gigs.”

“My friend Dani Bennett Spragg she also engineered my last record, I just send her all the files from my live shows in Australia and she knocked it into an album. Obviously it was me and my acoustic guitar, but she really rounded it off. There were some really cool performances as well.”

“I’m quite self-critical, just the thought of listening back to myself is quite painful. Actually there were a lot of performances that I was quite pleased with and it turned into a great record. So, a lot of that last set will be part of what I do at The Greystones when I do the tour, but I’ll throw in a few new ones as well.”

“I’ve done a lot of writing over lockdown and Ellie Gowers who is supporting me, she’s great, she has been in the studio lately working on new material. Ellie will do her set and then she’ll also join me onstage for a few numbers, which will be nice. I love her voice.”

“We’ve really missed getting in a room with musicians and just playing over lockdown. The last couple of days have been lovely in the studio, we’ve been mainly arranging and jamming together. It’s been great.”

“We’ve got Fred on drums and Tommy on bass, I’d only met him recently… but he’s wicked. Just getting in a room and vibing, I’ve really missed that.”

Just like in that of a good novel or any other piece of prose for that matter, Blair seems to effortlessly provide an escape but also presents a world in which you cannot only empathise but one that evokes those melancholic forlorn feelings that linger long after the song has finished… causing you to replay it once more.

“I’m not really a big film guy for example, I love watching films where it seems like nothing happens. Just like the same way I like songs that don’t resolve. It doesn’t have to be this rounded thing with a big punchline… I like things that are not trying to be too finite.” Case in point, on the song One and the Same he ponders the plausibility of love, a possible loss and hope, just like he says, it’s an unresolved moment of which there are plenty to be found throughout his music.

Lockdown naturally had a big effect on Blair, something he was keen to expand on. Not just its effects on him but that of others too.

"We don’t really know what other people have going on, not having that human contact has a massive impact on us on an emotional and a mental level. I’m just going to try and enjoy every moment. The few gigs that I’ve had they’ve been great, but also the gigs that I’ve been to as a punter, I’ve probably enjoyed them as much as anything else. It sort of makes you appreciate what you had, doesn’t it?” The the things we took for granted? “Definitely… yeah”, he says with a chuckle.

Despite the difficulties of the last couple of years, Blair has weathered the storm and he’s managed to maintain a positive outlook as he looks forward to getting back to doing what he loves the most, performing to audiences and making music with his peers.

This week, he will be making his to Sheffield after a short while away, how does he feel about coming back?

“You know when you’ve just got that venue, where it’s sort of like coming home? I just like the venue, it’s a good size, I like the space, it has a good audience, love going to watch gigs there, going over the county lines… it’s great.”

Blair Dunlop will be performing at The Greystones, Sheffield on Saturday 5 March, 2022. You can buy tickets here. His latest album Trails: Queensland (Live) is out now on all streaming services.