Annie Dearman, Steve Harrison and Martin Clarke
Annie, Steve and Martin drop into Folk at the Grove from time to time on Singers Nights.
Annie and Steve have themselves performed before at the Grove, and Martin has appeared with both Tom Napper and Bob Davenport.
Tonight, Annie and Steve have teamed up with Martin:
Annie with her distinctive voice; Steve who plays a variety of instruments in accompaniment; and Martin with his a reservoir of songs, humorous, ballads or music hall - and a few tall tales!
And tonight I feel there will be some tuneful jousting between Steve and Martin.
Sam and Ed
Annie Dearman, Steve Harrison and Martin Clarke: April 25th 2008
Traditional Song in an English Style
Annie Dearman (voice) and Steve Harrison (melodeon, mouth-organ, anglo-concertina, bagpipes) perform traditional songs in a robust and firmly rooted English style, taking their repertory from traditional singers, the folk song collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, manuscripts of past performers of traditional music, printed ballad sheets, and songs and tunes they happen to hear and like.
Annie Dearman sang with several acappella groups with whom she appeared at numerous folk clubs and festivals in the 1970s and 1980s.
After moving to Yorkshire in 1990 she was a founder member of the voice workshop Making Waves
, before teaming up in a duo with Vic
Gammon in 1993. She wrote directed and sang in the show The Festival. Away from music she is a freelance designer and maker of theatre
costumes, back drops and banners, and has recently completed several season's work for the Mikron Theatre Company.
Steve Harrison has lived in Yorkshire all his life. Along with Nick Barber, he founded the dance band Official Brawl in 1986 with whom he continues to play mouth organ, pipe and tabor, bagpipes, whistle and saxaphone. He has played for many Ceilidh bands, morris ans sword dance teams and for a great many community events. He a member of the Long Company Mummers and currently leads English Traditional dance band.
Annie and Steve are residents at the Ryburn 3-step Folk Club in Rippenden, and with Vic Gammon have produced a CD, Black
Crow/White Crow,
which has recently been released by the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
Martin Clarke
Martin Clarke started singing traditional music at the Bluebell in Hull sometime in the mid-60s. There he heard a range of legendary British and American singers and musicians as well as the residents, the Watersons, Ian Manuel and Jim Eldon to name but a few. While away from Hull at University in Oxford he met Liz (now Peta) Webb, June Tabor, Allan Ward and later Tony Engle, Reg Hall, Bob Davenport and Bampton Morris! The melodeon playing started at the same time. All were strongly influenced by Reg Hall's work with English Country musicians.
In the early 70s, Liz, Allan and Tony joined with the Stradlings to form the band Oak which morphed over time in to Webb's Wonders, playing a mainly southern English repertoire. Martin meanwhile returned North, met a wonderful melodeon player called Don Mackay and started playing in Leeds pubs, including The Park Hotel (now demolished), the Rising Sun, the Cardigan Arms and, of course, the Adelphi. With the addition of Jim Wright on banjo and Jackie Wright on mandolin-banjo the duo became a band. It played a peculiar mixture of popular songs (mainly learned from Sing Something Simple on the radio during childhood), music hall classics, waltzes and polkas. The idea was Northern English Country Music in the City, or something.
Since nobody else was playing anything like this at the time, the band was named The Leeds Band. Under this title, the band became house band in the North for Bob Davenport, recording two whole tracks for Bob's Down the Long Road album. In London the band gained quite a reputation, somewhat aided by the fact that hardly anyone in London had ever heard the band play. During this sporadic period, Martin also worked with his good friend Jim Eldon and The Leeds Band even played some folk clubs.
Eventually Don Mackay left Leeds to return to his native Suffolk (he sadly died before reaching 50) and Jim Wright left to be a jazz musician. Various musicians filled in, including Jerry Oakes and later Paul Roberts on fiddle and Tom Napper on tenor banjo. Martin can't recall how exactly Tom came to be in the band but it ceased playing in pubs and became a local dance band, The Old Chestnuts, which lasted in to the early 90s. Tom was clearly slumming but he needed the money! Martin had stopped singing and was concentrating on his other main interest, amateur dramatics, with the excellent Dewsbury Arts Group.
When the dance band ground to a halt, Martin put the melodeon in its box.
And then, a couple of years ago, Bob Davenport was persuaded to come to the Grove. Being a bit out of practice and looking for support, he rang Martin who volunteered to play melodeon despite not having played it in anger for years. At the gig, Bob was terrific. This event kick-started Martin into practising, a thing he'd never tried before, and also got him singing again.
As a result, he met Steve Harrison again after many years (Steve had on occasions called for Old Chestnuts) and was delighted to meet Annie Dearman too, so when Steve and Annie asked him if he would like to join them for a gig at the Grove, he jumped at the chance!
Martin Clarke
Annie Dearman, Martin Clarke & Steve Harrison - April 25th 2008
What a great idea suggesting that these friends do a night together!
The evening ranged from Vernon Dalhart to the Everley Brothers back to traditional English from both Annie and Martin, tunes from Sam Fawcett to Flaco Jiminez’s dad, and all carried off with irrepressible humour.
Please persuade them to do it again if only for a repeat of the grand finale ‘Goodnight, Irene, Goodnight’!
Dave from Todmorden