A single strand of folk music was lost to the British Isles in a great wave of emigration to the South Appalachian mountains in the 1700’s.  This single strand became interwoven with African rhythms, sacred singing, breakdowns, blues and rags and other American musical genres as history rolled into the 19th and 20th centuries.  From 1916 to 1918 folklorist Cecil Sharp[1] traced 274 songs and 968 tunes to England when travelling through the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.  It is the aim of Rainford Junction Festival Community Interest Company to mine this rich seam of British folklore and musical tradition and re-introduce it to the British Isles afresh. As we do so we intend to influence its forward progression by giving it a distinct feel of the modern contemporary acoustic music of home.

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