Billy Mitchell performed at Costa Del Folk Mallorca and were a huge success – please click on the home page to view all future Costa Del Folk Festivals.

In a career spanning half a century there’s no escaping the fact that Geordie singer and musician Billy Mitchell has been around a bit.

He started playing the guitar in the early sixties when, as he explains, they were all made of wood and mostly the same colour. With some mates he formed a “beat group” which later turned into a folk group called the Callies.

In the Seventies he joined the folk/rock band Jack the Lad with members of the then recently-split Lindisfarne, made four albums, and spent years touring the UK and Europe.

Billy also enjoyed success with the highly-rated Pacamax band, before teaming up with another member,  Peter McIntyre, to form Maxie and Mitch, a hilarious duo which toured for no less than 24 years.

In 1996 he joined some of his old mates in a re-united Lindisfarne, still regarded as one of the top tier of folk/rock bands.  With Billy as lead singer, they released two albums and enjoyed eight years of critical and commercial success in the UK and USA.

In recent years Billy’s been involved in new partnerships, including a musical duo with another Geordie folk hero Bob Fox (current on a world tour as the singer in War Horse) and with the addition of Jez Lowe and Benny Graham, a quartet called the Pitmen Poets, celebrating the songs and culture of the North East’s coal mining tradition and heritage.

He’s currently touring theatres around the country with “The Lindisfarne Story” in which he’s joined by the band’s long-term leader and drummer Ray Laidlaw.

Billy’s also maintained a solo career and recorded what for many fans is a career highlight with “The Devil’s Ground” album of original and contemporary folk songs. One reviewer has described the record as Billy Mitchell’s legacy, ranking him alongside the chroniclers and curators of the North East’s heritage and history.