Biography
Formed during the middle of the 1960s, the folk trio known as the Black Country Three brought together the sibling folk singer-scholars Michael Raven and Jon Raven together with Derek Craft. The group’s name denotes a region of the English Midlands delimited by Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Staffordshire. In 1966 the members cut their self-titled debut album for Transatlantic, an LP that combined a handful of contemporary pieces—including one rendition of a Bob Dylan song—with traditional repertoire. Although the trio enjoyed considerable success, its existence spanned little more than a couple of years. Across four decades the Raven brothers sustained parallel careers as recording artists and performers while each also produced extensive writings on the history, folklore, and music of the Midlands.