The Red Lion Folk Club has been presenting live folk music in Birmingham for well over fifty years.

The club traces its history back to Scrimshaw Folk Club, founded by Jim McPhee in Kings Heath in the late 1960s. Scrimshaw was initially held at St Dunstan’s Centre. By the later 1970s the club had moved to the Hare & Hounds, developing into a successful regular guest-booking club and attracting performers and audiences from Birmingham and beyond.

In 1982, the club moved from the Hare & Hounds to the Red Lion on Vicarage Road, which has remained its home ever since. Jim McPhee’s account of the move recalls a final night at the Hare & Hounds so busy that the room filled within fifteen minutes, with the remaining audience redirected to the Red Lion for an additional late performance.

Over the following decades, the Red Lion developed a national and international reputation as one of the Midlands’ leading folk venues. Jim McPhee, who also ran the Acorn Agency representing folk performers, continued to organise the club until May 2001, when Chris and Della Hooke took over.

In 2006, the Red Lion was named Folk Club of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. The club continued on Saturday nights until September 2010, when it moved to the Wednesday evening slot it retains today.

Chris and Della Hooke continued to run the club until May 2026. It is now run on a not-for-profit basis by a volunteer committee, carrying forward a long tradition of bringing performers and audiences together at the Red Lion.

Today the programme continues to reflect the breadth of folk music itself: songs to listen to, choruses to join, tunes that make the feet move, shanties and ballads, contemporary songwriting and the energy of a folk-rock band. We aim to keep presenting a rich mix of performers and traditions, and to help live folk music continue to thrive in Birmingham.