Peter Bellamy

Biography

Peter Franklyn Bellamy, 8 September 1944, Bournemouth, Dorset, England, d. 24 September 1991, England. After dropping out of art school in 1964, Bellamy formed the highly influential and innovative Young Tradition in 1965, with Royston Wood and Heather Wood. The trio specialized in a cappella arrangements of traditional English folk songs. Bellamy was influenced early on by traditional Norfolk singers Harry Cox and Sam Larner, and revivalists such as Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd. The Copper Family were also a great influence on the Young Tradition’s arrangements. They disbanded in 1969, and Bellamy commenced his solo career later that same year. In 1970, he began a series of recordings of his own arrangements of the poems of Rudyard Kipling. As a result of the series, he was elected to the vice-presidency of the Kipling Society. In 1977, he releasedThe Transports, a self-composed ‘ballad opera’, featuring the talents of Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, June...

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