We play: Concerts, Ceilidhs, Classes, History Events, & Festivals. Workshops include: English Style Guitar Picking, Playing With Percussive Vocals, Northumberland Fiddle Tunes
	With detailed intricate guitar, a rich resonating contralto vocal and intense unique song arrangements and their commitment to older story-songs, this tradition-based duo's focused sound is a beguiling feast of texture, rhythm and changing dynamics. The duo's newly minted, original and dynamic creations use only the classic tools: a guitar and a voice, but keep each song highly unique. Audiences invariably mention a pin drop immediacy, the word mesmerizing and point out their surprise at Rebecca’s exuberant vocal which resonates right off the floor, plus the satisfying complexity of John’s perceptive, subtle yet intensely detailed guitar work.
Barclay and Steele are the notable folk duo whose detailed intricate guitar, rich resonating contralto vocal and intense unique song arrangements, are bringing a fresh sense of excitement and discovery to the performance of songs of work and older story ballads. This tradition-based duo's focused sound is a beguiling feast of texture, rhythm and changing dynamics. The duo's newly minted, original and dynamic creations use only the classic tools; a guitar and a voice. Each song is uniquely rendered and served up without a sounding of sameness in presentation. Both performers play traditional fiddle and feature both old and original tunes. Of this duo, audiences invariably mention: a pin drop immediacy, the word mesmerizing and point out their surprise at Rebecca’s exuberant vocal which resonates right off the floor in surprising far-ranging ways, combined with the complexity of John’s perceptively subtle and intensly detailed original guitar work.

	FLASH PICTURES
Rebecca Barclay, originally from Toronto, Canada and as a Canadian Folk Music Awards best Traditional Singer nominee in 2010, is know as one of North America's gifted performers of folksong. Rebecca is also a fiddle player and inventive music arranger with an interest in the older songs. A former host of the celtic music radio show, Music of the Glen at Ottawa’s CKCU, Rebecca has been a member of many bands ranging from folk choirs, traditional ceilidh dance bands, to celtic rock bands including her own special blend performing traditional and original material.	John Steele, originallyfrom Northumbria in the North-east of England, has obsessively played guitar since the age of nine, also plays fiddle and mandolin, and has performed in one of the northeast’s foremost ceilidh bands, Maximum Pastry. John grew up deeply immersed in the traditional music of Northumbria and the borders and brings new playing elements of ornamentation from the Northumbrian fiddle and pipe traditions into his guitar strategies. Greater listening reveals more in his understated but highly intense playing.
Distinct: The shared focus of these two individual musical backgrounds, immersed in a wealth of traditional performance and history from both sides of the Atlantic, makes for one of the distinctions of a Barclay and Steele performance. An exhilarating mix of repertoire: English, Scottish, French, Irish, and Canadian traditional ballads inspired by the works of Nic Jones, Richard Thompson, The Corries, and the areas of Newfoundland and French Canada, are joined with a rare original song or tune. With delightful variety, the duo introduces the audience to new sounds and forgotten stories, whilst bringing the familiar into a detailed, lively, engaging terrain, where a deeper listening unfolds fresh qualities.

Barclay and Steele have recorded two CDs

• Islet (2007)

• With the Night Fast Approaching (2011)

Rebecca Barclay has also recorded three CDs

• Cinnabar (2010), created with fifteen guest musicians, friends from other bands;
mostly Toronto or Northumberland based traditional musicians
including Joel Shore on fiddle.

• Raging Zephyr (1993) with the Rebecca Barclay Band and also the band
The Stonewall Prophets, and including Jim Edigar on fiddle.

• Gaia’s Balance (1991), an album of mostly original songs, some traditional...
Including eleven musicians with Pepe Mendoza on
antara and kena and Corey Manders on saxophone.

All are available from Raven’s Wings Records
here at: www.barclayandsteele.com

“…strangely mesmerising vocal … beautifully intricate
and exuberant picking. Intriguing and intense…” fROOTS

“John's guitar work is very skilled indeed: both exuberantly intricate
and understated, gentle and yet percussive, not exactly drawing
immediate attention to itself and yet intensely satisfying to listen to
both in isolation and in the role of accompanist.”
David Kidman of Folk Roundabout

Rebecca Barclay and John Steele provide dark mysterious vocals and intricate guitar, combining to present compelling, sparse, and intensely direct older traditional story songs.

Barclay and Steele’s approach to performing traditional material is to place the song at the centre of their arrangements and to allow the performance to grow as naturally as possible out of the words, melody and mood of the song. In doing so they draw on a variety of influences blending them to create a sound that is
both firmly rooted in tradition yet identifiably their own.

Rebecca Barclay and John Steele perform songs from the traditions of England, Canada, Scotland, Ireland and France. Their understated arrangements of traditions songs are founded on Rebecca Barclay’s powerful yet subtle vocals coupled with John Steele’s sensitive guitar accompaniments, occasionally complemented by fiddle and percussion. Both experienced solo performers, their collaboration evolved out of a common interest in English traditional song, but their diverse repertoire includes material from throughout the English and French speaking regions of Europe and North America.

We play:
Concerts, Ceilidhs, Classes, History, & Festivals.
Workshops include:
English Style Guitar Picking, Playing With Percussive Vocals, Northumberland Fiddle Tunes