Brassed Off

Brassed Off is a 1996 British-American comedy-drama film written and directed by Mark Herman and starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor.

The film is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure of their pit. The soundtrack for the film was provided by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and the plot is based on Grimethorpe's own struggles against pit closures. It is generally very positively received for its role in promoting brass bands and their music. Parts of the film make reference to the huge increase in suicides that resulted from the end of the coal industry in Britain, and the struggle to retain hope in the circumstances.

Context

The film is set ten years after the year-long strike in 1984–85 by the National Union of Mineworkers in Britain. Before the privatisation of British Coal, a wave of pit closures took place. In contrast to the militancy of 1984–85, the miners put up little resistance. Many had been in debt ever since the long strike, and were prepared to take redundancy money whilst it was on offer. The National Coal Board arranged private ballots between closing a pit immediately with compulsory redundancies (which were relatively generous) or taking a pit to a review procedure to determine whether a profit could be made in the private sector (where any redundancy money would have probably been much lower). Although miners had a tradition of fighting for their jobs, the risk of losing the redundancy money on offer by going forwards to privatisation swung the votes in most ballots to be in favour of pit closure and redundancy. The loss of hope, pride and fighting spirit in what were previously proud mining communities was the basis for the idea of being "brassed off".

Kate Rusby

Kate Anna Rusby (born 4 December 1973) is an English folk singer and songwriter from Penistone, Barnsley. Sometimes known as "The Barnsley Nightingale", she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is one of the most noted contemporary English folk singers. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.

Career

Rusby was born into a family of musicians in 1973 in Barnsley, England. After learning to play the guitar, the fiddle and the piano, as well as to sing, she played in many local folk festivals as a child and adolescent, before joining (and becoming the lead vocalist of) the all-female Celtic folk band the Poozies. Her breakthrough album came in 1995. A collaboration with her friend and fellow Barnsley folk singer Kathryn Roberts was simply titled Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts. In 1997, with the help of her family, she recorded and released her first solo album, Hourglass. Since then she has gone on to receive acclaim in her home country and abroad and her family continues to help her with all aspects of her professional career.

Sandy Denny

Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978) — known as Sandy Denny — was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".

After briefly working with British folk band the Strawbs, Denny joined Fairport Convention in 1968, remaining with that band until the end of 1969. She formed the short-lived band Fotheringay in 1970, releasing one album with them (another unreleased album surfaced over thirty years later), before focusing on a solo career. Between 1971 and 1977, Denny released four solo albums: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, Sandy, Like an Old Fashioned Waltz, and Rendezvous. She is also noted as the only guest vocalist on a Led Zeppelin studio album, when she shared a duet with Robert Plant for "The Battle of Evermore" on Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album (1971).

Music publications Uncut and Mojo, as well as the Sunday Express, have all called Denny Britain's finest female singer-songwriter. Her composition "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" has been recorded by many artists as diverse as Judy Collins, Nina Simone, 10,000 Maniacs and Cat Power.