Jim started with his first instrument, a guitar at age 12, and didn't take up the fiddle until he was in his twenties. He was influenced by the sea songs that he heard from being a boy. Also, by the skiffle movement headed by Lonnie Donegan, which he sees as an important forerunner to the folk music boom of the 60s. During the seventies, he travelled around the East Riding collecting folk songs from local people. He now has enough of these songs, which he calls his cherished repertoire, to do an entire evening. In 1987 he played the part of the narrator/street singer in Peter Bellamy's famed stage musical The Transports.

During his week as a guest at Whitby Folk Week last summer, singing and playing fiddle at many of the concerts, Jim never wasted an opportunity to busk with his fiddle and dancing doll for the day tourists down by the harbour. Jim's wife Lynette, who will be with us in Collessie, is an expert step dancer. Jim can be found in a number of YouTube clips - one of which is linked below.

WebLinks:
YouTube: Died for Love

Having spent his life learning the songs of his family, in 2008 Thomas sang publicly for the first time at the folk club at London's Cecil Sharp House. By the following year, he had sung at the most prominent folk festivals and clubs in Ireland and England, appeared on BBC Radio, and has since shared a stage with many well known performers including Christy Moore, Lou Killen, Sam Lee, Chris Coe, The London Lasses and the Copper Family and has won the praises of many other respected musicians besides. 

Thomas’s repertoire contains many very rare and ancient songs that were passed onto him from his mother, Mary McCarthy who passed away in 2010. She in turn had been given them by her father John McCarthy, a renowned singer and song-maker, who collected songs from all over Ireland on his travels to fairs and from the many people who passed through his home in Birr. Other sources of songs have been uncles and aunts and cousins as well as many people from outside of the Traveller community such as his uncle through marriage, Tommy Ryan, who gave Thomas many songs from his native Tipperary such as The Battle of Aherlow.

Website:
Guardian article

Fiona is a gifted song interpreter with a distinctively strong, richly-hued voice and as lead singer with Malinky (Folk Band of the Year 2010) she is much in demand as a performer and has been nominated twice as Scots Singer of the Year.

While in the US, Fiona undertook an internship at the illustrious Smithsonian Institute, home to decades of invaluable folklore study. Having developed a particular enthusiasm for the songs of Scottish Travellers, she has been working with members of the Perthshire-based Stewart family, learning her craft first-hand from the last tradition-bearers of this celebrated folksong dynasty. 

Inspired by his work for Kist o Riches, Chris began collecting songs from his native area a couple of years ago, and has also researched The Poets' Box, a Dundee broadside publisher of the previous two centuries. With a view to promoting traditional singing, he recently founded The World's Room singers club in Edinburgh, and occasionally performs in a duo with singing partner Lucy Pringle.

Website:
Kist o Riches