Hannah White & The Sound Lounge: South London’s Beloved Folk Haven

Hannah White’s latest album Fine Day is a beautifully crafted collection of powerful and timeless folk songs, full of raw poetic honesty. Widely praised in the folk/American community, White is a true hero of the UK’s folk scene, at one time struggling as a homeless single mother who has now gone on to become a multi-award-winning artist, earning major recognition from the Americana Music Association UK and becoming a leading light of the grassroots folk circuit.

At the 2024 UK Americana Awards, she won both UK Album of the Year and UK Artist of the Year for her 2023 album Sweet Revolution, opened for Jools Holland at the Royal Albert Hall in November 2025 with a full-band set, and earned a coveted invitation to perform at AmericanaFest in Nashville. Through all these accomplishments, Hannah White has remained firmly rooted in the community that helped her on her way. An approachable and lovely figure, her passion for music as a force for good is evident from the moment you walk into The Sound Lounge in Sutton.

The Sound Lounge is a music venue, vegan café and record store on Sutton High Street in South London, co-founded with White’s husband Keiron Marshall. Created as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company to provide a platform for the very best of the UK’s independent roots music scene, The Sound Lounge champions folk, Americana, blues and country performers of all backgrounds who might otherwise have nowhere to play. An intimate and cozy spot with delicious chai and wood-fired pizza, The Sound Lounge is a beacon of grassroots culture, as well as being the first music venue in the UK to achieve official carbon-neutral certification.

In its first few years, The Sound Lounge has featured 800 different artists and bands, from local singer-songwriters to touring acts from the USA, as well as 100 charity events and initiatives from benefit concerts to coffee meet-ups. The venue has given away hundreds of hot meals and drinks to those in need, and offers accreditation programs for local youth in sound engineering and event management. The Sound Lounge has resurrected the ideal of the old folk club with a modern, socially conscious twist, giving emerging artists a shot at building a fanbase whilst treating audiences to the kind of up-close performances that big arenas can never offer, and you’re just as likely to find Hannah White performing on stage as you are to find her serving coffee behind the bar.

We spoke to Hannah to find out more about Fine Day and The Sound Lounge:

Hi Hannah! Thanks for talking with us today! First of all can you tell us what your goals were with Fine Day after the success of Sweet Revolution?

Your music has a quality that can only be described as timeless. Do you listen to much older music for inspiration than the rest of us?

Could you teach the readers a thing or two they might not know about the UK’s folk and Americana ecosystem?

Can you tell us how it was performing at the Royal Albert Hall and how that came about?

Tell us about The Sound Lounge in your own words, and everything that you offer there?

What is the driving ethos of the business?

Has running a music venue changed your understanding of the music industry?

What are some of your favourite venues in the country, other than your own?

Please use this opportunity to shout out some unsung heroes, who are some folk artists and important figures in music that we might not know about?

Would you rather perform all your future gigs at the Royal Albert Hall or The Sound Lounge?