Louisa Jo Killen (born Louis Killen; 10 January 1934 – 9 August 2013) was an English folk singer from Gateshead, Tyneside, who accompanied themself on the English concertina.
Killen formed one of Britain’s first folk clubs in 1958 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and became a professional folk singer in 1961. In the 1970s Killen recalled: “When I started Folk Song and Ballad in Newcastle in 1958 there weren’t twenty folk clubs in the whole country, and when I left for the States (in 1966) there were maybe three hundred.”[2] Recordings of Killen singing some Tyneside songs were included on both The Iron Muse (Topic Records 12T86, 1963) and the revised version on CD (Topic Records TSCD465) issued in 1993. The accompanying book to the Topic Records 70 year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten has a dust jacket picture featuring Louis with Frankie Armstrong and the one of the songs featured on both albums of The Iron Muse, The Blackleg Miners is track six of the sixth CD in the set.