ABOUT
Singer and guitarist, Jack Badcock is a hugely experienced performer, having toured throughout Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, predominantly as frontman and founding member of his multi-award winning, internationally renowned world-folk band 'Dallahan'. He is a critically acclaimed solo artist and has also performed or recorded with Rura, Siobhan Miller, Adam Holmes, Dougie MacLean and The Royal Scottish National Orchestra among many others and was a finalist in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award. His career has seen him perform at some of the world’s most prestigious folk music events including Tønder Festival (DK), Festival Ortigueira (ES), Celtic Connections (SCO), Woodford Folk Festival (AUS), Milwaukee Irish Fest (USA), Festival Dranouter (BE) and countless others.
Raised in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland and later Yorkshire, England, before moving to Scotland as a teenager, Jack has a split national identity shared between the three countries. At eighteen, in Edinburgh, he formed a partnership with multi-instrumentalist Ciaran Ryan, touring the UK, Germany and Denmark. The duo would go on to form Dallahan in 2013, which rapidly became one of Scotland's busiest international folk bands. To date the band have recorded four critically acclaimed albums, earned several awards and many nominations and toured extensively on four continents.
Having previously sung mostly original interpretations of traditional songs, in 2020 Jack began writing original songs, initially incorporating them into Dallahan’s music before beginning to write and release solo recordings. In 2021, he released his debut solo EP, The Driftwood Project. Funded by Creative Scotland, the EP was drip-released throughout the year and showcased a plethora of musical influences and outlooks, featuring a large lineup of some of Scotland's most accomplished instrumentalists from the jazz, classical and folk worlds. It was nominated for Original Work of the Year (Sponsored by PRS) at the BBC Scots Trad Music Awards 2021. He was then invited to write, arrange and perform the prestigious New Voices commission at Celtic Connections 2022 with a show of all-new original material with a six-piece band. In Autumn 2023, Jack went on tour throughout the UK as the support act for Eddi Reader, finely honing his solo live show in the process, before also performing on a lengthy tour in Germany the following year.
In May 2024, Jack released his critically acclaimed debut album Cosmography - produced by Euan Burton (Kris Dever, Julie Fowlis) - and launched it on a 16 date tour throughout England and Scotland the same month. Described by critics as “a glowing galaxy of songs” and affirming Jack as “a first class songwriter”, his debut album was nominated in the German Music Critic’s Choice Awards and earned him a nomination for Composer of the Year in the Scots Trad Music Awards.
Jack Badcock is a singer whose solo material reveals an astute songcraft exploring enormously wide ranging subjects delivered with a musical sensitivity clearly influenced by American folk, funk and soul music as much as the traditional music of Britain and Ireland and all served with a healthy dose of storytelling and humour.
"Badcock knows how to make an impact with his clear articulation, melodious phrasing and astute way of relating a narrative" The Herald