Mrs Casey Music
Mrs Casey Music

The History of Mrs Casey Music

Mrs Casey Music (MCM) was formed in 1972 by Steve Heap in response to many requests for assistance with the presentation of Folk music and dance.  MCM commenced work as an agency, providing Folk dance bands to the PTA circuit, Morris dancers to village fetes, and singers to folk clubs, festivals and charity concerts.  We soon developed into Festival organisation, taking over the running of Towersey Village Festival in 1975 (11th year), from its founder Denis Manners.

Towersey Village Festival

The Towersey Village Festival, in its 46th year (2010), is principally a community arts Festival, attracting approximately 10,000 people into a village of 450 residents on the edge of Thame in Oxfordshire over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The Festival has a Folk/Roots music theme, through an open door policy to other branches of the arts.  It attracts a mixed audience of youth, singles and family groups, some for 5 full days, for which the Festival provides camp sites.  The Festival also has other visitors, mainly local people for a few hours to a Showground or a full day to the wider Festival.

Associated charity The Friends of Towersey Festival is a registered charity whose purpose is to support people in their education in music, dance and song, theatre, arts and crafts.  It receives funds from the Festival, individual members who wish to support its aims and donations from a variety of sources.

Mrs Casey Music continued its work through the 1970s and 1980s as an agent and promoter and developed a reputation for event organisation, working on community arts festivals for Hampshire County Council, City of London and Oxfordshire County Council.  The company also organised or assisted with events in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Devon and Cornwall.

Into London

On invitation from the Barbican Centre in London, Mrs Casey Music organised Folk/Roots music events including two American Music Festivals.  These led on to a Folk festival weekend and a new project known as Evolving Tradition encouraging young musicians and singers.  They events were staged at the Barbican Centre in support of a record release on the Mrs Casey Records label.

Mrs Casey Music also has a long standing releationship with the South Bank Centre (London) and successfully ran a concert series for over 15 years, latterly known as Folk in the Fall.

In the 1980s Mrs Casey Music organised festivals for the Rank Organisation, through their Butlins Holiday Centres, over various weekends throughout the year.  This contract lasted over 10 years and succesfully brought Folk music, dance and song to a much wider audience.

Folk Development

In 1986, the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) decided to pull out of the running of festivals and in particular, the Sidmouth International Folklore Festival.  Mrs Casey Music formed a partnership, bought the rights to the festival, re-titled it Sidmouth International Festival and ran it successfully for 18 years until 2004 (Golden Jubilee), attracting over 65,000 visitors each year.  Having re-established the event we left it to the new west country organisers and went on to focus on a new countrywide folk development agency - FolkArts England.

FolkArts England gained Regular Funded Organisation (RFO) status from Arts Council England up to March 2009, when FolkArts England management suggested the funding for the following two years should be handed to the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS).  FolkArts England now concentrates on its festivals branch, The Association of Festival Organisers (AFO), without core funds.  November each year sees the annual gathering of these festivals at the AFO Conference.  This event is often preceeded by a one day Folk Industry Conference, which FolkArts England has also created and established.  In 2010 FolkArts England and The Association of Festival Organisers are partnering with EFDSS to run the Conference.

Mrs Casey Records

A record label (MCR) to support in particular new young players in the Folk/Roots field was formed in 1993.   Our list includes Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr, Evolving Tradition Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 and most recently, rising star Ruth Notman. 2010 brings new dynamic trio Tyde to the label and plans are in progress for Evolving Tradition 5 and a new view of English Melodeon Players.  We also released a three volume video tutor pack How to the Play English Melodeon by the master of squeeze John Kirkpatrick, which has now been re-released as one DVD.  Following the success of John Kirkpatrick, we now have a DVD tutor for Celtic Session Guitar - Alistair Russell's Celtic Session Guitar Tutorial.

And Into Retail
Music, Tickets, Merchandise

The Folk Store is our online shop selling CDs, tickets and merchandise.  The one-stop shop for the very best in Folk/Roots and Acoustic music has been a key aim of Mrs Casey Music since the early days.  We hope that through our various branches and events we can raise the profile of the UK's Folk/Roots, Traditional and Acoustic music, dance and song scene and proudly involve more people in these island's musical heritage.

Mrs Casey Music Director and Founder, Steve Heap is also active in the wider arts & events industry.  He formed The Events Industry Forum (EIF) in 2004 and is a member of the Musicians Union Folk, Roots and Traditional Music Section.  He also speaks for Folk with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Folk Arts, Voluntary Arts Network, National Campaign for the Arts, National Music Council, PRS for Music and wherever the opportunity arises to raise the profile of this genre.

Mrs Casey Music has its roots in the Folk music of England and is proud to be one of its representatives in the arts world.

It’s all in a Name
Mrs Casey's Story

In the village of Ascott under Wychwood in the Cotswolds, the morris dance team prior to the First World War was very active.  Similar to their neighbouring villages, in particular Fieldtown now known as Leafield.  They had a whole host of traditional dances and some made up by the dance team themselves.

When the First World War came along almost the whole of the Ascott under Wychwood morris dance team went to the war and unfortunately most of them did not return.
The son of Mr John Tiddy was killed in the War and John Tiddy Snr. decided to erect a memorial hall to his son and to others in the village that had died.  The hall still stands and is known as the John Tiddy Memorial Hall.  It bears photographs of the morris dance team with their musician, often a mouth organ player.

After the First World War many of the dances were lost and collectors could only find a small number of people who knew the dance figures and the tunes.  One of these was an elderly lady who was known as Mrs Casey.  She sat in a rocking chair and told the collectors as much as she knew about the morris dancers of Ascott under Wychwood.
We believe she died in the 1920’s so without her permission we borrowed her name and her rocking chair to name our company in 1973.  We commenced trading in 1974 as Mrs Casey Music Agency.

The facts of this "origin of our name" story came from the late John Townsend of Ascott under Wychwood.