Peter Franklyn Bellamy (8 September 1944 – 24 September 1991) was an English folk singer. He was a founding member of The Young Tradition and also had a long solo career, recording numerous albums and touring folk clubs and concert halls. He is noted for his ballad-opera The Transports, and has been acknowledged as a major influence by performers of later generations including Damien Barber and Jon Boden. Early years Peter Bellamy was born in Bournemouth, England, and spent his formative years in North Norfolk, living in the village of Warham and attending Fakenham Grammar School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His father, Richard Reynell Bellamy, worked as a farm bailiff at that time. Peter Bellamy studied at Norwich School of Art, and later at the Berkshire College of Art and Design in Maidenhead, under Peter Blake, and decades later still retained something of the flamboyant art student image, being described as looking like a latter-day Andy Warhol, with blond hair often worn in a ponytail and tied back with a ribbon, a scarlet jacket and florally patterned trousers which he made himself from furnishing fabric. Encouraged by his friend Anne Briggs he dropped out of college in 1965 to become a member of "The Young Tradition" with Royston Wood and Heather Wood. The trio recorded mainly traditional songs in close harmony and mostly without accompaniment. The Young Tradition projected their voices powerfully, clearly influenced by The Watersons, the Copper Family and Ewan MacColl. They recorded three albums together plus a collaboration with Shirley Collins called The Holly Bears The Crown. Although recorded in 1969, this was not released in full until the 90s. The Young Tradition's final concert was at Cecil Sharp House in October 1969, after which they split up, with Bellamy wanting to concentrate on traditional English music, whilst the other members had developed interests in mediaeval music. In 1971, Bellamy recorded a collaboration with Louis Killen: "Won't You Go My Way?". Solo work Peter Bellamy's first solo album Mainly Norfolk (1968) indicated his desire to promote the folk music of his part of England. It drew heavily on the repertoire of Harry Cox, still alive at that time, who was the most famous traditional singer of Norfolk songs. On the album, Bellamy sang all songs unaccompanied. Beginning on his second album, Fair England's Shore (1968), he began to accompany himself on the Anglo concertina.