WOW, Poland was amazing again with bigger venues and much bigger audiences.  The Shanties festival was incredible as always and it was nice being joined by many of my friends on stage.

I am very happy to announce a group of new tour dates for the upcoming months and I would love to see them packed out again!  I am awaiting confirmation for a few shows and they will be added shortly but for now, here they are.

April

Thurs 26^th – Square Tower, Portsmouth, call 07746062033 for tickets

May

Friday 4^th – FULL BAND SHOW Bristol Folk House, bristolfolkhouse.co.uk

Sat 5^th – Beltain, Butser Ancient Farm, Butserancientfarm.co.uk

Weds 9^th – FULL BAND SHOW, Sheffield Greystones, mygreystones.co.uk

Thurs 10^th – Halifax Puzzle Hall

Friday 18^th – FULL BAND SHOW, The Cellars at Eastney, Portsmouth

Sat 19^th-21st – Burg Festival, Germany, feuerundwein-bremen.de/

Weds 23^rd – Farnham Maltings, farnhammaltings.com

Sun 27^th – Reading Folk Club, readifolk.org.uk

June

2^nd – 3^rd – Leiden Shanty Festival, Holland.

The Polish tour is announced and I am happy to be going back to the beautiful Poland.  I have visited many times this great country and am very excited about returning.

This time round I will be playing at 5 different shows one of them including the incredible Shanties festival in Krakow which I know will be another great experience.

Many thanks to the new manager of Polish shows and press Michal Nowak who is doing an amazing job!

Here are the Dates and Details:

23rd – Dobrodzien
(18.00, free entrance, Dobrodzienski Ozrodek Kultury i Sportu – sala kameralna/Dobrodzien Center for Culture and Sport – chamber music hall) -> http://dokis.info/

24th – Wroclaw
(20.00, ticket 10 zlotys, Centrum Kultury “Zamek” – podziemia/Cultural Centre “Castle” – underground) ->http://www.zamek.wroclaw.pl/CMS/kalendarz_imprez_2012/Chris_Rickets_koncert_24022012.html

25th – Kedzierzyn-Kozle (support: Wiktor Bartczak)
(18.00, ticket 10 zlotys, Dom Kultury “Kozle”/Kozle House of Culture) -> http://mok.com.pl/?act=czytaj&id=2627

26th – Shanties Festival Krakow

27th – Shanties Festival Krakow

Will be great to see you all there!

Chris

Hello!

so, last night Mike Harding played a track from the debut album ‘Port of Escape’ on his BBC Radio 2 show.  I have already recieved a massive response from listeners and am absolutely overwhelmed by the comments and reaction from listeners, I thank you enough for this.

Preperation for the release is going well and coverage of ‘Port of Escape’ is growing daily, with more news to follow in the coming weeks!

The album release show is set to take place at the Cellars at Eastney in Portsmouth on the 1st November and tickets are available here  if you click here.  The release show will feature the full band that is on the album with some other special surprises and guests, plus a new electric guitar!!

In the meantime check out the facebook fanpage by clicking here and please join for news and updates.

Thanks again!

Chris

Well, what an incredibly crazy and busy (but amazing) Summer with the tour being extended over to Canada meant that I would be away for nearly two months on the road. Highlights of the tour being the many folk and maritime festivals i took part in along with my first ever house concert.

I had such a wonderful time across Europe and Canada and videos can be found on the Ricketts15 youtube channel and i’ve attached a link to one video below of the concert at Port Dover Maritime Museum in Ontario, a wonderful concert with a perfect setting on the riverside.

The CD preparation is going really well with a four and a half star (out of five) review in Maverick and some very nice words on the Spiral Earth site.  Preparations are going on as we speak for the CD release tour in November and I hope to a have the full band play on the Warrior for the ‘official’ release.

Watch this space

for pictures and videos .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2elgCHrjuk4 <– John Kanaka @ the Port Dover Maritime Museum, Ontario

I have just come back from a few heavy working days in the studio and not only and I   am exhausted but so very excited.  I cannot thank the incredible musicians featured       on it enough.  The wonderful production playing and all round genius of Steve            Hampton mixed with the class of Alex Stack on drums and the incredible Garry        Blakeley on strings really brings out EXACTLY what I was after with this album.

The album ‘Port of Escape’ will not be out until November but keep a close eye here for   some sneak previews and snippets.

I must say that its the most fun I have ever had whilst recording an album with the      infrequent interludes of moving the pig on the farm or going to collect the eggs from    the chicken pen (whilst being attacked)!

I look forward to getting the album out!!!

I’m very excited about an upcoming tour with the amazing songwriter Anna MacDonald.  Please see the dates below!

Sunday 26th June – The Cluny 2, Newcastle

Monday 27th June – Old Cellars, Portsmouth - http://www.thecellars.co.uk/detailedlistings.html#0627

Tuesday 28th June – Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham -http://www.wegottickets.com/event/114533

Wednesday 29th June -Jagz in Ascot with Folking.com -http://jagz.co.uk/music.php?band_id=414

Friday 1st July - The Lansdown, Bristol

Saturday 2nd July - Recording with Songs from the Shed

Sunday 3rd July – The Rude Shipyard, Sheffield
*Live internet broadcast*

Monday 4th July – The Dram, Glasgow

Tuesday 5th July – Edinburgh, Royal Oak

For information about tickets email: info@greyfoot.co.uk – or telephone 07718 758 308

Wow! is the first word that comes to mind when thinking about the weekend I had in Poland during the Shanties 2011 festival. What an incredible festival totally dedicated to the songs of the maritime culture and what an honour to be involved and given the opportunity to perform.

I was first joined on the stage by an incredible fiddle player called Jola Gacka who played fantastically! Unexpectedly during ‘Sally Brown’ we were also joined by Jerzy Porebski on the trumpet, this was amazing!!

Highlights of the festival involved being joined on stage by various incredible Polish singers. A huge influence of mine Andrzej Korycki and Dominika Zukowska joined myself and Jola Gacka for a version of ‘Shenandoah’. Please have a look at Andrzej and Dominika’s website here (http://www.korycki.com/)

Another highlight of the festival was singing ‘Northwest Passage’ with the incredible Grzegorz Tyszkiewicz otherwise known as the Guru! Grzegorz has an incredible voice, check him out here (http://www.gooroo.art.pl/). Also another great surprise was that Pawel Jedrzejko joine myself and ‘Guru’ on stage.

The audiences throughout the week were absolutely astounding and the experience is something that I shall never forget. The vast majority of different styled groups and performers was something that the festival will be very proud of! I loved seeing many fantastic groups that I can easily take inspiration from. I particularly enjoyed the concert on the Saturday afternoon that concentrated on ‘Classic Shanties’. Cztery Refy, Sasiedzi, Banana Boat and the Mechanicy Shanties were particularly exciting to watch.

I cannot explain in words just how fantastic this festival really was, you most definitely have to go there to understand.

This weekend saw the return to Poland and performing at the Port Piesni Pracy Festival in Tychy, Poland. What an incredible festival full of extraordinary people, all sharing a similar interest in songs of the sea and the shanty tradition.

I opened the first set with Stan Rogers’ Northwest passage, a song that the Polish are not used to hearing in English,  I was even asked to sing it again on the second night of the festival! This was certainly a memory that will stick with me for a long time.

A certain Highlight of the weekend included singing with the incredible Banana Boat, the well known song ‘Stavangar’ by incredible wordsmith Pawel Jedrzejko. This was a wonderful experience and hopefully one that can be repeated soon at shanties 2011 in the centre of Krakow.

The late night session in the Tyskie brewery (a lovely lager!) saw the return of a selected number of the festival audience. I had a great time singing with members from Mechanicy Shanty and Maciej Jedrzejko of Banana Boat. The audience were fantastic, singing along and generally absorbing the shanty festival atmosphere. This was a concert that I will certainly never forget and one that will stay with me forever. Leaving the stage to the audience singing Drunken Sailor was truly an experience that will linger and never be forgotten.

Thank you to all the organisers of Port Piesni Pracy for making my experience and visit to Poland so enjoyable. I felt really honored to be a part of it and thank you to audiences for such a warm reception and general acceptance of my form of shanty.

I hope that we can return to Poland soon for some more performances and I really look forward to the tour in the middle of April. BUZKA!

Thank you for visiting my new website with solo adventures, even though I will continue recording and performing with Mark Willshire. Over the next few months I’ll be updating the site with photographs of my upcoming Polish and Festival appearances and also writing about my second album which hopefully will be recorded in the Summer.