Miranda Sykes

Miranda Sykes

Miranda Sykes is an English folk singer, double-bassist and guitarist from the United Kingdom, born in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in 1978. She grows up in a musical family and starts playing double bass at the age of eight. She later studies for a BTEC in pop music and finishes it remotely while touring with a band.

Career

In 1999, she joins the folk-rock band Pressgang as bass guitarist and tours internationally with them. She also records with Robb Johnson on his 1999 album The Big Wheel, and tours with him and fiddle and viola player Saskia Tomkins as a trio, releasing three albums together, including work credited to Robb Johnson With Miranda Sykes & Saskia Tomkins. She then joins Firebrand, who release Lost Lady Found in 2001.

In 2001 she tours with Bill Jones’ band and appears on the band’s live album. She later tours with Jones in a trio with Sarah Wright on flute and bodhrán, and then as a duo, contributing to Jones’ 2003 CD Two Year Winter. From 2003 to 2013 she tours with The Phil Beer Band.

Show of Hands and other collaborations

Sykes joins Show of Hands for summer festival performances in 2004, and the live album As You Were is recorded on that tour and released in 2005. She also records as Show of Hands with Miranda Sykes. She works in duo form with mandolin player Rex Preston as Miranda Sykes and Rex Preston; the pair tours for eight years and releases three albums together.

She is also active as a solo artist, touring solo shows in support of her albums Borrowed Places (2017) and Behind the Wall (2018).

Band work and recording credits

Encouraged by melodeon player Gareth Turner, she forms the Miranda Sykes Band with Imogen O'Rourke, Martin Fitzgibbon and Maartin Allcock, and the group releases an album in 2005. She also performs and records with Steafan Hannigan, Leon Rosselson, Roger Wilson, Alan Burke, Kirsty McGee, Jenny Crook and Little Johnny England. She works with John “Rabbit” Bundrick, Sarah Allen and Roy Dodds while recording Reg Meuross’s album Short Stories in 2004, then tours with Meuross before appearing on the 2006 album Still. In 2007 she tours as a duo with Martyn Joseph and plays bass on Joseph’s 2007 album Vegas, which includes songs from that tour.

Style and activity

Her work centres on folk and folk-rock, with bass playing and singing at the core of her career. She tours across the United Kingdom, North America, Canada and Europe.