The Ian Campbell Folk Group

The Ian Campbell Group soon established themselves as a highly proficient live act who became well known for their instrumental abilities as well as Ian Campbell's talent as a songwriter. Tours and television appearances followed, and in March of 1965 the group even managed to get a hit single with their rendition of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'.

The group's major strength however, lay in their live performances where the line-up was often supplemented by top session musicians. The Ian Campbell Folk Group played most of the major festivals in the country including the Edinburgh Festival, and the Newport Folk Festival. They also performed at The Royal Albert Hall in London.

A major regular venue for the Ian Campbell Folk Group in Birmingham was the 'Jug O' Punch' folk club located at the back of Digbeth Civic Hall. The Campbell family ran the club themselves with it soon becoming one of the most significant venues for folk music in the country. Folk groups from far and wide travelled there to perform but the Ian Campbell Folk Group were always the main attraction.

In 1966, Dave Swarbrick left to become a major player in the British folk scene and later joined the well known group Fairport Convention. Bass player Dave Pegg from the Birmingham group The Uglys joined the Ian Campbell Group in 1967 and a few years later would also leave to become a pivotal member of Fairport Convention.

Despite further personnel changes, the Ian Campbell Folk Group continued to tour and release records throughout the 1960s and 1970s although tragically, John Dunkerley died of Hodgkinsons disease in 1977 at only 35 years old. The Ian Campbell Folk Group finally disbanded in the late 1970s but their status in folk music circles has continued to increase since then as one of the earliest significant British folk groups to perform traditional and original material during the folk revival of the 1960s.

Ian Campbell began a new career in television as a presenter and producer though he continued performing sporadically as a folk singer during the following decades. Two of his sons Ali and Robin are founding members of Birmingham's acclaimed and internationally successful reggae/pop group UB40 who went on to sell more than 70 million records. When Ian was honored at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in February 2012, he joked to the audience that his sons' first record outsold all the recordings he had ever made in his entire career!