Friday 2 May – 6.30 pm – The Boathouse @ the Spyglass – Tickets £5.00

The Dollymopps are a trio that sing - largely - unaccompanied songs from the folk tradition of Southern England - with a particular emphasis on songs collected from their native Isle of Wight. The current line-up of Virgil and Dorana Philpott and Justin Smith has been together since 2005. Originally inspired by the harmonies of Sussex’s Copper Family, their singing began to develop a truly individual character after the discovery of a rich seam of local and traditional source material in 2008.

Their first CD ‘Long Songs’ was a tribute to the Isle of Wight’s own William Henry Long, who recorded a number of local songs “taken down from the lips of the singers” in his 1886 Isle of Wight Dictionary of folklore and dialect. Although, sadly, no tunes were recorded, and there are no clues as to his sources, Long’s book remains the only substantive evidence of nineteenth-century folksong on the Isle of Wight, and represents an important and neglected early example of southern English song collecting. They will also include material from their new CD ‘Wight Cockade’.

“The performances are absolutely vibrant, and what comes across really well is the three different personalities in the voices… the arrangements are very fluid and sophisticated, more artful than artisan, almost classical.” (Paul Armfield)

After a short interval, directly following the Dollymopps, Isle of Arts presents the Friday night Folk Fest hosted by Becky Haydock from the band Beachcomber.