Southern Tenant Folk Union

Southern Tenant Folk Union - Band Biography
Formed by Belfast born five-string banjo player Pat McGarvey and taking their name from the ground breaking multi-racial union of sharecroppers and non-landowning tenant farmers founded in Arkansas in the 1930’s, the Southern Tenant Folk Union are an explosive new London based folk and bluegrass outfit.
Writing and performing their own unique brand of Old-Time, Bluegrass, Gospel and Celtic Folk, Southern Tenant Folk Union appropriate the themes, ideas and metaphors from traditional folk songs and 20th century Americana music to document and reflect modern life through styles popularised by musicians such as The Carter Family, The Stanley Brothers and even Dillard & Clark.
Pat McGarvey served his musical apprenticeship touring the world and recording a number of albums with UK/US Americana band The Coal Porters. That grounding plus countless other collaborations with key Americana acts including Peter Case, The Arlenes, Tandy, Amy Rigby, Ian Dunlop (of Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band), Rosie Flores, Jason McNiff & Bob Neuwirth gave him the real experience needed to fuse together the band’s American folk sound and British roots with his own Celtic heritage.
Keen to find a more personal outlet for his writing, in early 2006, McGarvey gathered a collective of like minded musicians that share his love of traditional music, but each with their own individual take on such tradition; Oliver Talkes (guitar), who’s unique, soulful voice is at the heart of the STFU sound. Pete Gow (guitar), from the Alt. Country band Case Hardin who has performed with the likes of Chris Mills, Stacey Earle and Caitlin Cary. Frances Vaux (Fiddle) with her background in jazz and Irish Folk and anchored by stalwarts of the London folk scene Eamonn Flynn (mandolin) and Matt Lloyd (upright bass).
Once up and running the Southern Tenant Folk Union released their debut album of original material in January 2007 to acclaim, positive reviews and national radio play. The rest of the year saw them playing festivals, arts centres and clubs around the UK and Ireland and they’ve now finished recording the follow-up ‘Revivals, Rituals & Union Songs’ (UNR011) which is be released on March 3rd 2008. A step forward for them with its strong confident tone, soulful sound and the darkly reflective yet heart-warming nature of the eleven brand new songs presented.
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