Lincoln Folk Festival 1971

Held on Sat Jul 24, 1971 at Tupholme Manor Park, about 15 miles east of Lincoln, UK, this was a kind of all-star one-day Woodstock of folk music. 

The full bill for the day was an extraordinary UK-USA gathering of talent headlined by James Taylor. 

Also on the bill: Tom Paxton, Buffy Sainte-Marie, The Incredible String Band, Pentangle, Sandy Denny, Steeleye Span, Ralph McTell, Dave Swarbrick & Martin Carthy, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Dion, Tim Hardin, The Byrds.

The Byrds, then in their post Gram, and very interesting ‘Untitled’ and ‘Byrdmaniax’ phase,  played an electric set but everyone else was acoustic. Sandy Denny was in the early stages of her post-Fairport, post-Fotheringay, career and with her debut album ‘North Star Grassman And The Ravens’ about to be released a couple of months later. She played her set with Richard Thompson who, along with Dave Pegg and Jerry Conway comprised ‘The Happy Blunderers.’

James Taylor was also high on the charts with the ‘Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon’ album. Buffy Saint-Marie was riding high on the back of her hit ‘Soldier Blue’ and the release of her Ballerina album.

The strong line-up festival attracted people from the north and the midlands too. The poster was designed by Ian Beck who went on to design Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album cover. The Byrds and Sandy Denny’s sets are widely available as a bootlegs