The Folk Music Hour

The Singing Word is a series created by Davey Calder, investigating what happens when poetry is set to music, becoming folk song. This is episode one.

Join Davey Calder for the final installment of his 2025 series on Aotearoa folk music, as a part of New Zealand Music Month.

Our all-Kiwi theme for NZ Music Month continues.

We continue our New Zealand music month with selections from all over the country.

Our 8th all-Kiwi New Zealand Music Month Folk Music Hours begins with a look at music awards.

For Anzac Day, Memorial Day, and Remembrance Day, a playlist of songs about the human longing to live in peace.

Join Davey as he shares some of his favourite folk covers.

We've put together another playlist of songs where the artists seek to amuse us, sometimes with a message implied.

Join Davey as he shares some of his favourite folk covers

Traditional songs get a new lease of life performed by contemporary artists.

The FMH companion to the film looks at the music from this turbulent time in history and contemporary folk song.

It's that time of year again, when we kick out the jams and the Folk Music Hour gets a bit loud as we preview some of the amazing sounds coming to Brooklands Park in New Plymouth, for the 22nd NZ WOMAD, World of Music, Art, and Dance. As always, the lineup gives us the chance to enjoy cultures not represented at other music festivals.

The sound of birds is a strong thread in the folk tradition

It's uncanny how close to folk some pop music can become.

Every year, we play a programme of entertaining songs from the Johnny Appleseed of folk and Americana whose banjo kicks off every Folk Music Hour

Each year we celebrate Martin Luther King Day by looking at the rich legacy of African American music. MLK Day 2025 is Jan 20th

Actors who sing and play - and singers who act - make for an interesting playlist

We begin every year with a programme of Sandy's music, near the time of her birthday

Our scrumptious Christmas and New Year's Eve show ends another year of fine folk.

Another playlist of choice folk includes news of WOMAD NZ 2025

The more we hunt through great folk and acoustic music, the more duets and duos we seem to find.

The seafarer's life has inspired a vast repertoire of folk songs.

The seafarer's life has inspired a vast repertoire of folk songs.

Setting fine musicianship to a beat is being called Folk Fusion, and Celtic sounds work superbly.

A celebration of the 500th Folk Music Hour includes some of David's favourites

A playlist of goodbye songs, of which there are many, some even promising a return.

The desire to classify kinds of music has ocurred in Folk, too

A new world tour sharing folk music that includes tracks sent in by listeners

So many of us have bloodlines that go back to the ancient Celtic peoples of Eurasia. That's why we love Celtic music.

Humans soon learn to hold something hard but flexible to get the best out of their stringed instruments. The 6th in our series Instruments of Folk.

Our Instruments of Folk series resumes. After plucking strings to make folk music, some clever person invented a bow to draw across the strings.

Our Instruments of Folk series resumes. After plucking strings to make folk music, some clever person invented a bow to draw across the strings.

For te wiki o te reo Maori 2024, we try to unravel the mystery: what is Maori folk music?

To mark 131 years of women's suffrage in NZ, an all-female programme of folk and related music.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of folk song, for the performer and the audience alike, is singing in harmony.

Songs and rhymes for children have folk origins and tell some wonderful stories.

We pick up the theme of Protest November, four podcasts from 2018, with new issues and songs.

Some more songs and tunes too good to miss make up a sampler from over 60 years of folk.

The Irish composer, instrumentalist and songstress influences modern folk with her interesting music.

Young musicians are very talented; some are keeping traditional folk going while others are adding to it.

We can't seem to help finding versions of songs we think you will love.

It's amazing how many filmmakers illustrate their themes with folk music.

July 14th is the National Day of France, and the birthdate of Woody Guthrie, whose lyrics spoke of freedom and human rights

In which we see the folk artist sounding pop, and the pop artist going folk.

We often think of a talent as ‘running in the family'. A playlist of folk parents and children making music.

The veteran folk artist and activist, so influential in NZ too, has announced her retirement.

Our first programme observing President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

The NZ musician Dave Jordan was constantly inventive, and perhaps the first Kiwi to make a living writing songs.

Yet more folk in our fourth playlist of the season

During May every year, NZ Music Month, we play only NZ songs and artists. Send us your songs to share.

More NZ folk and Kiwiana for NZ Music Month, 2024.