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We are pleased to welcome Reg Mueross to the Grove. This will be a great night from one of our finest song writers.
In these times of division and unrest, celebrity culture, and social media obsession, Reg Meuross offers a refreshing perspective. A compassionate and insightful songwriter, Reg’s quiet resistance and storytelling remind us of our shared humanity. Recently named one of FATEA magazine’s 2025 Artists of the Year, Reg is a rare and vital voice.
five decades and an impressive catalogue of 17 albums. What continues to drive him on is a profound sense of compassion and a compulsion to sing about social injustice, inequality, courage, and heroism – above all, a desire to tell people’s stories. “For me, it’s about creating and delivering the song.”
His songwriting subjects range from suffragette Emily Davison to artist William Blake, Chilean singer Victor Jara, and American folk pioneer Woody Guthrie. Themes span love and grief, mental illness and migration, austerity, war and institutional corruption.
Many of his most powerful works appeared on the RAW trilogy (2016-2019). Songs such as ‘For Sophie’ (about Sophie Scholl of the White Rose Nazi resistance group), ‘Angel in a Blue Dress’ (a tribute to NHS nurses), ‘And Jesus Wept’ (about executed WWI soldier Harry Farr), and ‘We Looked Away’ (inspired by a visit to Dachau). Alongside social narratives, he also writes tenderly about love and relationships, including a moving tribute to his father, ‘Good With His Hands’.
Most recently, Reg has focused his time on three ambitious song-cycle albums. 12 Silk Handkerchiefs (2018) explored the 1968 Hull triple trawler disaster, telling the story through the perspective of Lillian Bilocca, aka ‘Big Lil’ and the ‘Headscarf Revolutionaries,’ whose activism transformed maritime safety. “This is still living history,” Reg notes, “it continues to resonate.”
In 2023 came Stolen From God, widely regarded as his masterpiece. Addressing the transatlantic slave trade, the album emerged from Reg’s own recognition of how little he had been taught about Black British history and empire. Following four years of extensive research, the ten songs trace events from the first English slave voyage in 1562 through abolition and the Compensation Acts of the 1830s. “I wanted to tell the untold history,” he says.
His most recent release, Fire and Dust (2025), focuses on Woody Guthrie and was commissioned and produced by Pete Townshend. While Guthrie shaped Reg’s political awareness, Reg doesn’t consider himself a political animal: “I don’t go to rallies,” he says and while there is often plenty of anger in Reg’s songs, he is never judgemental: “I’m saying: I believe this is wrong, and I want to tell you why.”
It’s this deep social conscience that defines Reg’s work. “You see things you believe are wrong, and writing songs becomes a way of leaving a legacy – something that educates and inspires, through both the music and the stories.”
Anyone who has seen him perform live will attest to that impact. Whether in a pub, folk club, festival, or theatre, the intimacy and honesty remain constant. Armed with his treasured 1944 Martin guitar – and occasionally banjo, dulcimer, tenor guitar, or harmonica – Reg can make audiences laugh and cry within a single song. “People love being taken to that place,” he reflects, “because giving in to the emotion can be healing.”
After years immersed in large-scale projects, he now plans to refocus on a solo album centred on personal experience rather than a unifying theme. In an age of global uncertainty and relentless bad news, it is reassuring to know that Reg Meuross remains committed to shining a light on what connects us. “Whatever you’re singing about,” he says, “there has to be beauty and humanity in it. Music should be beautiful.”
“There’s something special about the way he writes and delivers a song” - Townes Van Zandt
‘assured a place in the pantheon of great folk songwriters’ – The Living Tradition
‘classic, with echoes of early Dylan, Tom Paxton and Leonard Cohen’ – The Guardian
“Reg’s terrific songs tell Woody’s life story with respect and affection, but also truth.” Pete Townshend
https://www.facebook.com/RegMeurossMusic
Tickets on Wegottickets
£10 advance
£12 door (if not sold out in advance)
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Event venue
The Grove Inn, Back Row,Leeds, United Kingdom
Tickets
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