Dave Webber and Annie Fentiman
Last appeared at the Grove: February 2006
We know Annie from the North-east of course, and after several years Dave has been tempted to leave the South to head for Northern parts! He is making every effort to come to terms with Geordie!
Annie is known for her repertoire of Geordie songs, and Dave for fine songs from the tradition, as well those that he has written himself.
Dave and Annie have a special bond that reveals itself on the stage.
Sam and Ed
May 23rd 2008
Anni Fentiman is a Gateshead lass from the south bank of the River Tyne who first discovered folk music through a friend who took her and her mates along to folk clubs. She fondly remembers The Barleycorn Folk Club run by Stefan Sobell, The Gosforth Folk Club and, a bit later, the singaround in the Baltic Tavern in Newcastle where she first started singing about 1973. She quickly started to sing Tyneside songs, and they've become a hallmark of her repertoire.
In 1976, she moved to London and began going to the Herga folk club where she found a number of good singers which made her dig more into the Tyneside songs. It was one way of doing things that was different from other people, and they went down well. Her attractive Tyneside lilt might have had something to do with that! However, with known authors and histories, much of the Tyneside material fell outside some definitions of 'folk'.
Southerner Dave Webber, from Swindon, developed his taste for traditional music at Ted Poole's Swindon Folk Club. He fondly remembers the significance of a floor spot almost 30 years ago:
“You went there, you were asked to sing, you approached it with fear and trepidation, went along and did your piece and nobody mentioned it again for maybe a month. It wasn't a question of ‘I'm here, so when's my turn?”
He sees his role as ‘interpreter’ of songs: being able to take a piece and to communicate it to other people.
“That's where I see people like Peter Bellamy and Martin Carthy particularly as very skilled because they've got that ability to take a traditional piece and package it in such a way that it drops in the lap of the listener."
In 1986 Anni and Dave joined forces with Charley and Cathy Yarwood to form the powerful harmony quartet Beggar's Velvet which ran for eight years. The group's professional career began in a naturist camp. Dave recalls, “I approached that gig with a great deal of fear and trepidation, fortunately it was in October and they were fully clothed!” In August '93, circumstances forced the group to break up, and Dave and Anni began working as a duo.
The pair are solidly established on the folk scene with club and festival bookings as well as recordings done together and with other singers. When asked about their success they seem rather non-plussed. Reflecting a bit, Anni remarks “if there's anything that contributes to any success that we have I think it's because we love what we do.”
Dave also puts it down to the friendship of some great people. He feels the sense of a wider folk community: “We've got to work some really good places for some really good people. It's a two way process."
Together with Newcastle friends Joyce and Danny Mcleod, Dave and Anni have recently embarked on a new venture called ‘The Old and New Tradition.’ To begin, they've created a record label that isn't strictly traditional, nor strictly revival, but works through the continuation of the tradition. As Dave says
“We want to see the good stuff from the revival, the good songs, co-existing with traditional material.”The venture is primarily focussed on helping artistes produce their own albums with the benefit of Dave, Anni, Danny and Joyce's skills and experience. ‘Quality' is the keyword. Dave doesn't mince his words over the need for it:
“The whole folk movement needs a serious dose of quality control, and not only in performance, it needs it particularly in respect of recorded material too."