Sally Barker has been around for decades but her voice just gets better with age. Whether she is singing to seven million on the final of TV's 'The Voice' or to 7 people in a local folk club Sally is the consummate professional. She has the ability to lift the words off the page as if you were hearing them for the first time.

Sally has been professionally involved with the acoustic music and traditional folk scene of the British Isles for the majority of her adult life (over 45 years) and been a part of over two dozen professional recordings, both her own solo albums, as part of various groups and as a guest on many others.  A selection of CD titles include: 'This Rhythm is Mine', 'Favorite Dish', 'Maid In England' and 'Ghost Girl' by Sally Barker, ‘Into The Well' by The Poozies and 'What We Did On Our Saturday' by Fairport Convention.

Sally is a composer of songs such as 'The Ballad of Mary Rose' (about the sinking of the flagship of Henry VIII of England in 1545) and 'Haul Away' (about the deportation of criminals from British jails to Australia between 1788 and 1868) that dig deep into the historical experience of Britain.   And, of course, her catalogue includes a wealth of songs about love and life.

Sally has also been deeply involved in performing re-interpretations of the folk music of Britain mainly through her work with 'The Poozies' but also with The Sandy Denny Project, and as a guest member of Fairport Convention. Check out ‘Chuirinn’ (The Poozies), ‘The Ballad of Matty Groves’ (The Sandy Denny Project), ‘Rising for the Moon’ at Cropredy (Fairport Convention).

Solo record deals with Joe Boyd's Hannibal label and the Hamburg based Hypertension Music followed. It was around this time that Sally began the all-female folk group 'The Poozies' with Karen Tweed, Patsy Seddon and Mary Macmaster.

In the early 90's Sally opened for both Bob Dylan and Robert Plant in Germany and toured consistently in Europe during this time, both solo and with the Poozies, releasing albums along the way.  By the mid '90s Sally had left the Poozies and had two small children with the idea of concentrating on solo work.   Future plans, however, were shattered when her husband Chris was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2003.  Sally's 2003 album 'Maid in England', which had been six years in the making (interrupted by 2 pregnancies and her husband's illness), was muted by the death of her husband and she lost the desire to perform her own songs. As a young widow Sally turned her attention to bringing up her two sons while also studying for a degree in Music Technology

Throughout her career Sally has toured as part of a band, in trios, duos and solo in the UK, mainland Europe, Australia and Hong Kong promoting both her own music and the Traditional music of the British Isles. Sally has performed with folk stars Show of Hands, toured with Fotheringay and iconic Folk-Rock band Fairport Convention, formed in 1970 and still performing today.

January 2016 found Sally on tour in Australia and by March she had left the Poozies again.  The rest of 2016 was taken up with solo work, touring with Fotheringay, and writing and recording the 'Ghost Girl' album which was released to coincide with Fairport Convention's tour as they celebrated their 50 years on the road with Sally as their support artist.

Sally has been collaborating with highly respected American finger-style guitarist and singer/songwriter Vicki Genfan, with whom she has been touring the UK and Europe, since 2001.

Sally’s regular writing and touring association with Vicki led to their first duo recording 'In the Shadow of a Small Mountain’, released in 2017.

Another duo collaboration was with Sarah Allen (Barely Works/Flook/Mike Scott/The Waterboys).

In September 2019 Sally released another duo album, this time with multi-instrumentalist Anna Ryder (her buddy in IOTA). A glut of original songs led the girls to the studio and the making of their CD 'When I Wake Up' on which they explore themes of love, nature, gannets on Alderney, football, sea nymphs, St Luke and imagery from fact and fiction.

Sally continued to play live regularly through 2019 debuting a solo show called 'Joni, Sandy & Me'.  In this show Sally brought some of the songs of both Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny to the stage, interspersed with some of her own, to explore the inspirational singer/songwriter legacy that was forged in the early '70s.

During 2022, Sally spent most of her time performing rescheduled concerts and rebuilding after the covid pandemic.  Whilst re-assessing where the world now stands post-covid, an exciting new project emerged- a 'Monumental Journey' across America to record 'in the wild' at some of America's National Monuments, with two awesome artists, Vicki Genfan from the USA and Scottish guitarist Ali Tod.  This trio of women will write and record a new body of work while on the road, inspired by the beauty and majesty of some of America's most revered and protected places. You can learn about their trip here.

An important artistic feature of the Monumental Journey is the creation of new music inspired by the environments that will be visited. Fundamentally, each artist’s musical background and expression is deeply rooted in acoustic music, but the mix of cultural heritage that each performer brings to the project differs in subtle ways.   Musical expression is deeply nuanced by our life experiences as well as the music that surrounds us. For Sally, it’s her immersion in a changing landscape of musical experience over more than 40 years and the influence of British traditional music (in some cases dating back to the Middle Ages) which embodies a narrative style based on storytelling passed down through the oral tradition, that has informed her own compositions. Through her work in traditional folk, Sally brings experience of the historical significance and knowledge of the forms of British folk music to this amazing project.   The album that emerges from the women of the Monumental Journey will be out in early 2024.

Sally will take to the road in Autumn 2023 with solo shows.  Some concerts will feature the songs of Joni and Sandy as well as her own and a new solo recording is in the works …! 

See where you can catch one of her shows here.