ABOUT
REV HAMMER
Rev Hammer is a singer songwriter and veteran touring musician. Working in the areas of folk, country, blues, and rock music since 1985 when he first appeared professionally. He has performed over 1200 shows in a forty-year career.
Rev is a founding member of Red Sky Coven Travelling Folk club with the poet Joolz and Justin Sullivan from New Model Army and a founding member of Drunk in Public with members of the Levellers.
He has toured Europe and the UK extensively as a solo artist, with The Oyster Band, The Ukrainians, The Levellers and as part of Red Sky Coven.
His stage show of Freeborn John was performed on its own stage at Beautiful Days Festival for 3 consecutive nights in 2005 and again in 2015. In between the epic folk rock opera successfully toured as a theatre show to sell out audiences in the UK during 2008.
On his 1991 debut album Industrial Sound and Magic, recorded in a cowshed in Brentwood, Essex, Rev is backed by the Levellers.
Initially, released on HAG Records. This was later released on Cooking Vinyl Records.
1994 saw another release on the Cooking Vinyl label- The Bishop of Buffalo produced by Justin Sullivan.
The award-winning song cycle- Freeborn John- The Story of John Lilburn featured guest vocals from Eddi Reader, Maddy Prior, Rory McLeod and Justin Sullivan, with performances from the Levellers, and John Matthias and was produced by Phil Johnstone (Robert Plant band) and released on Cooking Vinyl in 1997.
After spending 3 years recording Freeborn, Rev went straight into recording the acoustic ‘demo’ album The Green Fool Recordings with John Matthias and Phil Johnstone,
including the delightful cover of Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Child of the Wind’.
2004 saw a move to Attack Attack Records with the huge sounding Spitting Feathers which included the song Happy Birthday Revolution which would later become a hit for the Levellers who re-recorded it.
In 2010 Down the Alley became the first self-release and truly solo album from Rev, recorded in one take at Sound Gallery Studios in Exeter, it features Rev alone with vocals and guitar recording the songs as they were first written.
In 2017 a collaboration with guitar wizard, songwriter and friend, Nick Harper produced the album Skald which also featured the title song written and performed by Rev’s son Sam Ryan.
In 2020 a whole bunch of cosmic country songs written by Rev and his wife Sanchia Ryan (formally Sanchia Hylton -Smith, Midnight’s Pillow) went into production with drummer/producer Tim Powell -Morris and a high-flying country band featuring Rupert McDonald on guitar, John Matthias on Fiddle, and Ian Jennings on bass.
The resulting album- Stargazing by Rev Hammer and the Meltwater Ghosts was released in May 2023 and became Fatea Magazine’s album of the week.
2026 sees the release on DMF Records of the long -awaited Old Crow Folk Club Presents The Songs of Rev Hammer re-imagined. This recording features newly recorded versions of 23 of Rev’s songs by a collection of artists whose own music has meant so much to the songwriter over the years: Seth Lakeman, Mark Chadwick, Maddy Prior, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman, Dan Donnelly and Jon Sevink, Sanchia Ryan, Anna and Sam Ryan, Justin Sullivan, Nick Harper, Roy Harter, Nick Parker and the False Alarms, Simon Friend, The John Jones Trio, Alex Dover, Joolz, Zachariah Chadney, Alex Johnstone, Ben Green and John Matthias, Olivia Olwyn and Bob King, Rupert Mc Donald , Sam and Rohen McGrory and the magical duo Humm.
