Mary Hampton is a writer, performer and promoter of songs living in Brighton, England.

While reading 20th Century Music at University, she heard something very strange on a friend’s mixtape in between Frank Zappa and Penderecki.

It was an English folksong...The Snow it Melts the Soonest by Anne Briggs.

It was the sheer exoticism of this sound alone that set her on her current path.

After recording 2 EPs of traditional folksongs at home (Book One and Book Two), she wrote her first original album: a collection called “My Mother’s Children” which was released by Navigator Records last August and went on to be named no.4 folk album of the year in MOJO’s 2008 round-up.

She toured in the US last Spring and extensively after that in Britain, including a national tour for the Greenman Festival. Most recently she finished a double-bill tour with American anti-folk heroine Diane Cluck. She is currently writing her second album.

"terrifying and gorgeous, epic and tiny, unusual and strong... 'My Mother's Children' is an album I know I am going to love for life." - Eliza Carthy

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