Times airs Chris Wood's musical picks

As 2012's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards draws near, The Times' Saturday Review has turned to Faversham's own multiple award-winner, Chris Wood, for his thoughts on folk music in its "six of the best" feature.

For those of you who can afford to hop over Mr Murdoch's paywall, you'll find the article – and very good it is! – here. It actually works better on the printed page though, with Chris's words about his six selections serving as captions for photos: chivvy a Times-reader to give you a butcher's!

Chris was a double winner at last year's Folk Awards: best original song went to his powerful retelling of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes titled Hollowpoint; he was also named folksinger of the year, a title he picked up in 2009 too. 

Chris, who lives in Whitstable Road, isn't up for any gongs this year, but there are a couple of nominees with strong Faversham ties. 

Tim Edey and Brendan Power have been nominated for best duo of the year; as a lad, Tim was a frequent visitor to the Thursday-night sessions in The Bear, Brendan used to be a Dargate resident. Great players, the pair of them.

And the Oyster Band (Oysterband these days) are also up for a number of awards following the success of their recent collaboration with June Tabor, Ragged Kingdom. Oyster guitar maestro Alan Prosser is a Faversham Folk Club favourite – and an even more frequent visitor to my Faversham cellar for some bibulous musical evenings, as is Mr Wood. Ah, if those walls could talk…

• To find out more about Chris Wood and his music, see http://chriswoodmusic.co.uk/. Chris is in concert at Kings Place, London N1, on Friday (February 10) – very handy for St Pancras, you HS1 travellers.

• The Folk Awards are broadcast live on Radio 2 on Wednesday (February 8) from 7.30pm.

• Chris Wood's longtime musical partner, Andy Cutting – also a winner at 2011's Folk Awards as musician of the year – is playing at Faversham Folk Club on Wednesday March 14. One not to miss!