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Honouring the best in Folk and Acoustic
Now into its sixth year, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards gets bigger and better every time. Held for the second year running at London's glamorous Brewery Arts Centre, the ceremony once again fulfilled its aim of raising folk music's profile and proving that the genre boasts some of the most talented artists in the world.
 Bellowhead
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Ten-strong young band Bellowhead, fronted by last year's Best Duo winners John Spiers and Jon Boden, literally kickstarted the evening: after their gutsy, brass-fuelled version of Copshawholme Fair they were joined onstage by the outrageously athletic Demon Barber Roadshow for a Big Band, clog and rapper extravaganza that left the audience breathless and up for a great night's entertainment.
As befits a music where established traditions inspire successive generations of performers, award recipients ranged from veterans and legends to the brightest young things emerging from today's festival scene. Bellowhead took the prize for Best Live Act, while 'Father of Folk' Martin Carthy won the prestigious Folk Singer Of The Year title for the second time in four years, as well as Best Traditional Track for his newly-reworked classic, Famous Flower Of Serving Men.
Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain were for once rendered speechless - a rare thing, as anyone who knows them will attest - as they picked up the Best Duo gong from actress and singer Barbara Dickson, and the Guv'nor himself, Ashley Hutchings, presented a new category - Best Dance Band - to Whapweasel, a great sax and brass outfit from the north-east.
 Karine Polwart
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This year's runaway success was Karine Polwart, the 34-year-old Scottish singer who won three of the five categories in which she was nominated - Horizon (Best Newcomer), Best Album (Faultlines) and Best Original Track (The Sun's Comin' Over The Hill). The Rt Hon Charles Kennedy called the event "living history at work" and recalled his highland fiddle-playing father. Idlewild's Roddy Woomble also praised Karine's honesty and frankness of delivery.
Northumbrian piper and fiddler Kathryn Tickell was pronounced Best Musician and "a lovely lassie" by the ever-surreal John McCusker, and Oysterband The Big Session took the Best Band award and later the stage to perform a spikey, cello-underpinned John Barleycorn with vocal honours shared between John Jones, June Tabor and Steve Knightley.
A great American singer-songwriter was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Songwriting: Tom Paxton thanked British audiences for forty years of loyalty, friendship and support, and played his classic Last Thing On My Mind with Ralph McTell, bringing a flavour of folk revival rootsiness to the proceedings. Ramblin' Jack Elliott was 2005's second Lifetime Achievement recipient, who fair lived up to his name as he chatted to veteran BBC presenter Bob Harris and wandered over the the stage for a conversational rendering of San Francisco Bay Blues. Yeehaws all round!
 Tom Paxton
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Some of this year's presenters also caused much entertainment: Buffy Davies (The Archers' Jolene) arrived onstage wearing a towel turban and gave a speech larded with Archers references and the occasional lapse into character; Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson revealed he'd turned down an appearance at The Brit Awards in favour of the Folk Awards, and the irrepressible Noddy Holder observed that only folk music could hold an award ceremony in a place called The Brewery!
Voted for by the artists who perform at folk clubs throughout the year, the coveted Folk Club Of The Year Award was presented to Hitchin Folk Club by much-travelled performers Chris While and Julie Matthews.
 Maddy Prior
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As always, the night's acts were many and varied. Karine Polwart performed her award-winning song with her band and Martin Carthy was augmented by Martin Simpson on slide guitar and Paul Sartin (oboe) for a haunting ballad. Scottish songstress Eddi Reader sang Willie Stewart from her recent Robert Burns album, aided and abetted by John McCusker, Phil Cunningham and others, and the Kathryn Tickell Band played a beautifully melodic, flowing set of Northumbrian tunes. The finale came courtesy of Steeleye Span, earlier awarded the Good Tradition award by long-term fan and best-selling author Terry Pratchett, in which folk-rock ruled and the sprightly Ms Prior danced and swirled her skirts as vigorously as ever she did back in the 1970s. Clearing the room and getting the guests down to the bar was another story ...
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