Shake a Leg

Hello everyone. Shake a Leg have decided to hang up the stripey jackets and drop the final anchor. Falmouth 2017 was our last gig and we want to thank all of you who have come to our concerts over the years. We never made a CD so all we leave are memories, and to help those we will leave our Facebook page. We were always about the harmonies and the music, and central to this was certain combinations of voices, and now without those people we feel we have lost the unique sound that made us “Shake a Leg”. Thank you all of you who have followed us over the years and in different lineups and various guises I am sure we will see you in the future.

Maritime songs and stories, humour and harmony are the key to a performance by “Shake a Leg”. Formed in 2007 to bring together from across the West Country, eight great singers who all share a love of songs-of-the-sea coupled with their love of entertaining. Although shanties and work-songs form a strong part of their repertoire, Shake a Leg are a refreshing change from other shanty sides by being equally split with the wonen’s voices equaling the men’s.

Entertaiment and variety are guaranteed with contemporary and musical-hall songs rubbing alongside the more traditional material. Solo performers in their own right, their strong lead voices set against chilling harmonies and unusual arrangements led a member of the audience at Falmouth Shanty Festival to say, “You are different from the other groups, you make the hairs on the back of my neck stand-up.”

Although they sing many songs unaccompanied, a Shake a Leg performance includes instruments as diverse as hurdy gurdy, flute, banjo, guitar, violin, mandolin, whistle, harmonica, viola and bodhran!

If you fancy some of that, and want to know where their name comes from – yuou will just have to hear them to find out!

Shake a Leg was sponsored by The Front – ‘ the bar on the quay’.