The Fivepenny Piece

British folk music group

The Fivepenny Piece are a five-piece band, originally formed in 1969 in the area of East Lancashire around Ashton-under-Lyne and nearby Stalybridge in Tameside. The band met and performed on Wednesday nights at Ashton's Broadoak Hotel, which gave them their original name The Wednesday Folk in 1967. Their break came when they entered and won the ATV talent show New Faces in the 1970s, which led to a contract with the Noel Gay agency, a recording contract with EMI, and their new name. The band's original members all hailed from the Ashton/Stalybridge area. Many of their mostly self-penned songs reflected their roots, using Lancashire dialect, with references to the mining and weaving trades, the mills and factories, and the Lancashire characters who lived in the area. But there was another side to the group's music, perhaps best described as more pop oriented. The band's music is most often categorised as folk, though many/some feel that is too limiting a description.