root salad f20 B, B & W
Bartram, Brookes & Weatherall to you. Derek Schofield appreciates the fine if lengthily-named borders trio.
T
he name Bartram, Brookes and Weatherall may sound like a firm of solicitors but, collectively, they bring a range of musical
experiences to their English traditional songs and tunes. A track from their well- received 2011 album, New Midsummer’s Day, was included on our fRoots 37 compilation, and they’ve performed at several festivals, including the 2013 Sidmouth Folk Week.
The three musicians, Chris Bartram
(nicknamed Yorkie to distinguish him from a fiddle-playing southern English name- sake), Neil Brookes and Tony Weatherall, all live in the neighbouring counties of Cheshire and Shropshire, where they can be found playing enthusiastically in pub music sessions. The informality of this music making carries over to their club and festival performances: there’s no gimmick- ry, just straight-forward, honest singing and playing.
After buying a melodeon in the 1970s,
Tony Weatherall searched London’s record shops to seek out the different music that could be played on it – one of which was Cajun during its 1980s heyday. He toured with the Crayfish Five and then Compan- ions Of The Rosy Hour before moving back north, to live on the Cheshire/Shropshire border. Here he joined The Boat Band with their eclectic mix of Cajun, zydeco and English music, and plays with them still.
In spite of his nickname, Yorkie Bar- tram has not lived in Yorkshire since he was 17. For some years, he and his wife Alexa had a dairy farm in Carmarthen- shire. With the late Dave Haines, melodeon player Rees Wesson and Alistair Gillies (now in ceilidh band All Blacked Up), Yorkie formed the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company. A gig in Shrewsbury con- vinced them that there was more going on, folk-wise, in Shropshire than in Car- marthen, and leaving Dave in Cheltenham to form Edward II, the other three moved north. There, Chris and Rees also formed the Midland Aces, playing Cajun music, and also zydeco with Joe Le Taxi, which is where the rubboard came from. “But about 15 years ago,” Chris says, “I got fed up pretending to be American.” Tony interjects with a grin, “And so he pretend- ed to come from Shropshire!”
Thinking that there was a theme developing, I turn to Neil. “I have abso- lutely no interest in Cajun,” he declares. A progressive music teacher at Crewe Grammar School encouraged Neil and his contemporaries to try the local folk club. After university in Sheffield, he moved to Manchester, gaining an MSc in chemistry and a lot of tunes learned in Irish pubs
such as The Exile Of Erin; by this time he was playing flute, fiddle and even had a practice set of Irish pipes. Moving to live on the Welsh/Cheshire border, he found that the local “Irish” music scene was not what he’d experienced in Manchester. He joined the local morris team and, with musician friends back in Crewe, formed a ceilidh band, strongly influenced by the burgeoning interest in English music spearheaded by the Old Swan Band, Flowers & Frolics and others. The attrac- tion was, Neil says, “the good, strong, rhythmic melodies”.
Cheshire fiddle player, John Hardy, introduced Neil and Tony separately to a set of 19th century tune books from north Shropshire, and together they transposed the tunes into ABC format, selecting some of them for a CD, The Whitchurch Horn- pipe, on the WildGoose label. But they realised that they needed a good singer to join them if they were to bring their music to a wider audience.
Chris, who had made a CD for Alistair Gillies’ Coughing Dog label, was mean- while not comfortable doing solo gigs. Tony and Neil were looking for a singer, and Chris was looking for a band: a match made in heaven!
But it’s not mere convenience that binds them together. All three are actively involved in the informality of pub sessions.
“I t’s the close, intimate
environments – the pub or the kitchen – which is where this music comes from,” says Neil, “and as a trio, we like to maintain that intimacy.” When Chris had first listened to folk music, he recognised the songs that his mother sang when he was a boy – and recognised too “her flexing of tunes, shifts in rhythm, which I later heard in traditional singers such as Sam Larner and Fred Jordan.” Tony’s grandfather kept a pub in Newcastle-under-Lyme, where there was singing and music – and it’s that atmosphere of making music in a pub that attracts him. Neil’s mother and grandfather were both clog dancers, and his uncle, Sam Steele, recorded singers and musicians in East Anglian pubs in the 1950s – a selection was published on a Veteran CD – and as a boy, Neil was intrigued by Uncle Sam’s musical stories.
Chris feels that many instrumentalists try to push singers into a rhythm, but finds that Tony and Neil are more flexible. “It’s giving Chris the freedom to sing: accompa- niment without it seeming like an accom- paniment,” says Neil, “we don’t over- arrange, but it’s still challenging and stimu- lating.” This approach, plus a strong Shrop- shire flavour to their music and song, makes them an entertaining festival and club trio. F
www.yorkiebartram.co.uk Bartram, Brookes & Weatherall, conveniently seated in photographic and alphabetical order
Photo: Judith Burrows
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