For many years throughout the late Seventies and early Eighties, the Sunflower Folk Club was the only place in Belfast to hear quality folk music in a sympathetic environment and it soon became an institution with most of the top folk performers from Ireland & the UK playing there.

Totally organised by the late Geoff Harden, the club also provided an important platform for aspiring musicians at the time and many have since gone on to become very successful.

The good news is that a Sunflower Folk Club Reunion Night has been arranged at the Black Box on Wednesday to celebrate what would have been Geoff's 65th birthday.

With all proceeds in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care, the impressive line-up includes Ben and Anne Sands, Thomas & Mary McLaughlin, Jane Cassidy, Maurice Leyden, Gerry Creen, Craobh Rua, Deirdre Shannon & friends plus others.

Following last year's impressive European tour, The Hunger Mountain Boys from Massachusetts — one of the hottest bands on the American roots music circuit — play Belfast's Black Box on Sunday to help us celebrate today's American Independence Day.

Featuring Kip Beacco (guitar, mandolin, fiddle, vocals), Matt Downing (string bass, vocals) and Teddy Weber (guitar, steel guitar, vocals), The Hunger Mountain Boys merge contemporary influences with their own eclectic upbringings and infatuation with 1920s, Thirties and Forties western swing, country jazz and early bluegrass.

Having released four albums and having supported Taj Mahal, Doc Watson, Iris Dement and Ralph Stanley on tour, these Americana aficionados continue to enkindle the spirit of the early performers in their rip-roaring live set.

Music of a different kind is on offer tomorrow evening at the Sonic Lab at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queens University when Indian guitar virtuoso, Debhasish Bhattacharya, is set to amaze music fans with his unique style and intriguing instruments

Recipient of the 2007 BBC Planet Award for World Music, Bhattacharya has been deemed a true musical phenomenon, while his charisma as a master musician, composer, innovator, revolutionary thinker and guru has attracted a legion of devotees.

A child prodigy to musician parents, Bhattacharya was initiated into Indian classical singing, but was drawn to the guitar because of the ability to emulate the human voice by using the slide.

As his musical career continued to develop, so too did Bhattacharya's own style of slide guitar playing, which led him to create his own instruments; a fascinating trio of slide guitars — the Chaturangui is a 24-string hollow neck guitar, the 14-string Gandharvi and the Anandi, a 4-string slide Ukulele.

All three innovative inventions combine aspects of the western guitar with elements of the traditional Indian instrument.

Renowned for his fluid phrasing and post-modern fusion of traditional roots blues with rock and roll guts, Joe Bonamassa, toured with blues icon, BB King, when he was 12 and was recently named Best Blues Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine's Readers' Choice Awards. Local fans will see why when the acclaimed blues-rock guitar virtuoso, vocalist and songwriter, who released his seventh solo album, Sloe Gin, last year, visits Belfast's Spring & Airbrake on Wednesday.

Finally, a feast of folk is on the menu at the Hillside in Hillsborough tomorrow, courtesy of The Pluckin Squeezers (the Co Down trio who give trad their own twist with a mix of Irish, Scots and Americana), while, following two recent postponements, it is third time lucky for Amy Macdonald's concert at the Mandela Hall on Thursday.