Name Frankie Armstrong | Role Singer | |
 | ||
Similar People | ||
As far as the eye can sing frankie armstrong ii
Frankie Armstrong (born 13 January 1941 in Workington, Cumberland, England) is a singer and voice teacher.
Contents
- As far as the eye can sing frankie armstrong ii
- As far as the eye can sing frankie armstrong i
- Biography
- Solo
- Collaborations
- Reissues
- Books
- Literature
- References
She has worked as a singer in the folk scene and the women's movement and as a trainer in social and youth work. Involved with folk and political songs from the 1950s, she has performed and/or recorded with Blowzabella, The Orckestra (with Henry Cow and the Mike Westbrook Brass Band), Ken Hyder's Talisker, John Kirkpatrick, Brian Pearson, Leon Rosselson, Dave Van Ronk and Maddy Prior. She is blind from glaucoma.
As far as the eye can sing frankie armstrong i
Biography
Frankie Armstrong moved to Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, as a young child. She began singing in a group with her brother singing Elvis Presley and Little Richard numbers, and in 1957 joined the Stort Valley Skiffle Group which a few years later changed its name to the Ceilidh Singers as its repertoire moved towards folk music. The group founded the Hoddesdon Folk Club.
In 1963 she began working with Louis Killen and performing solo, then in 1964 she joined The Critics Group directed by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. (Louis Killen's advice led to her developing the harder voice quality for which she is noted.) In 1965 sang at the Edinburgh Festival "Poets in Public", with John Betjeman, Stevie Smith and Ted Hughes. Her first recording, in 1965, was at the invitation of Bert Lloyd who as director of Topic Records was putting together an album of erotic songs with Anne Briggs, released as The Bird in the Bush (12T135, 1966).
In the mid-1970s Armstrong pioneered workshops based on traditional styles of singing. She was an initiating member of the NVPN - Natural Voice Practitioners' Network, and "The key figure behind the development of the network...".
She was a member of the Feminist Improvising Group (FIG), co-founded in 1977 by vocalist Maggie Nicols, bassoonist Lindsay Cooper, keyboardist Cathy Williams, cellist and bassist Georgina Born, and trumpeter Corinne Liensol. Armstrong collaborated within the accomplished FIG after 1978, and also with free jazz pianist (and partly percussion playing) Irène Schweizer, saxophonist (and film maker) Sally Potter, trombonist and violist Annemarie Roelofs, flutist and saxophonist Angèle Veltmeijer, and saxophonist and guitarist Françoise Dupety.
The accompanying book to the Topic Records 70 year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten has a dust jacket picture of Frankie with Louis and The Crafty Maid's Policy from Lovely On The Water is the seventh track on the second CD in the set.