89 f All Together: Equate
So what had we here then? The fleet-fingered future of folk music in an upwardly mobile package – or a bunch of pushy young upstarts? In fR143, May 1995, Sarah Coxson put pencil and paper to The Equation…
I
’m probably the average product of a folky family myself. I’ve grown up to a soundtrack of people play- ing traditional music or inspired by the same. And though I often joke
with my parents about the legacy they’ve left me (never able to forget I was once a Morris dancer!), I am about as infinitely grateful as anyone could be that this is the case. These days, at twenty-four, too old for what is fast becoming known as the “folk brat pack”, I have, like most enthusiasts, a very wide range of musical reference and tastes. I like clubs that play cheesy anthemic house music: I’m a suck- er for Curtis Mayfield; I am steadily build- ing up a catalogue of Talking Loud releas- es and I… ahem… know the routine to Take That’s Could It Be Magic. (I never said I had class!)
Despite all this, nothing quite elicits the same emotional response and passion for me as folk music. Be that Dick Gaugh- an, The Watersons. Kante Manfila, Fanta Sacko, Andy Irvine, Nic Jones, Youssou N’Dour, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh or a host of others. Me and my mate Andrea, a simi- lar specimen, find ourselves listening to the likes of the above, prodding in the general area of our hearts and enquiring, dewy-eyed, “Did it get you just there?”
And I’m about as musically adept as Whigfield. Apply the same rules to more competent young musicians… and the future looks bright. Hear the passion and energy with which Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr play and sing, marvel at the depth of the playing of Shetland fiddler Catriona Macdonald, be floored at the sweetness of Cara Dillon’s voice from Oige. All have been brought up in an environment where traditional music is commonplace and now they, and numerous others, are taking to the performance forum and setting stages, hearts and minds alight.
Martin Carthy, famous not only for
being Eliza’s dad, has commented that one of the main things about this emerging generation of musicians is their level of competence; far superior to that of any of the revivalists at the same age. This, cou- pled with the fact that the children of the “original folkies” look groovy, sets up an
amazing potential for attracting a new and younger generation of enthusiasts for the music.
The Equation certainly have strongly held convictions on the image front as well as about their music. And on their future, and on their potential, and on their merits. You probably haven’t even heard them yet and are wondering who on earth they are and why on earth they are on the front cover. Well, good point. They had, after all, hardly played a note together up until Spring this year and are all aged no more than 21. Yet, somehow. they are playing the main stage at Cambridge Folk Festival this summer, have gigs confirmed up until Autumn 1997, are recording a CD towards the end of the year… you get the picture. So, in true Q style, it’s time to pose the question: “Who the hell do The Equation think they are?”
Young Tradition Award) alongside the Dartmoor-bred Lakeman Brothers, Sean (21), Sam (19) and Seth (17). Both con- stituent parts have been making signifi- cant ripples in the folk scene and beyond for the last couple of years and the plan is that the combination of the two forces creates more mighty possibilities.
T Kathryn Roberts had previously lent
her mellow, bluesy vocals to the debut Lakeman CD 3 Piece Suite but it wasn’t until September 1994 that the idea of Kathryn and Kate working together with the brothers on a more permanent footing became more of an exciting prospect. Noted as a champion Irish dancer, Kathryn was requested by a friend to get together a group of young musicians, dancers and singers – all under the age of twenty-one – to perform at a festival in Portugal. As it happens, Kate is also an excellent dancer (Irish/Clog/Appalachian), claiming it as a result of being dragged by parents to numerous festivals as a child (Kate’s dad Steve runs a PA hire company), getting bored and so going to the various dance workshops on offer. Both of the girls were
he basics: The Equation com- prises Barnsley-based singers Kate Rusby (21) and Kathryn Roberts (20, and the current holder of the BBC Radio Two
in their own dance team, Blackadder, for a while and as the pair were childhood friends and already working as a duo, Kate was immediately counted in. After some thought, The Lakemans presented them- selves as an excellent idea for the non- singing and dancing other three.
The subsequent performance created somewhat of a stir: “The crowd rushed to the stage and we were signing autographs till the sun came up. It was an absolutely huge hit.” Not the sort of thing that is sup- posed to happen to folk outfits really! All parties had regarded it as a one-off to start with but the massive reaction made them think again.
Kathryn: “A couple of weeks after, when everyone had gone their separate ways and was thinking about it more and more, we decided maybe it would be worth trying to get some work. And the response has been so huge. It’s really taken off.”
Initially the plan was to get two weeks of work but, as Sean found out, things went rather better than planned.
“Me and ma, who is the boss and agent, and absolutely genius at it, sat down on the phone and within three days had three weeks of tours booked up. We thought ‘Aha!’ Now we’ve got work offered up to the Autumn of 1997! Two or three Germany tours, two States tours, and there’s possibly Australia. It’s just bananas considering when all this was done we hadn’t played a note. Quite insane!”
Obviously the reputation of both par- ties has much to do with this initial burst of interest, though there’s a lot more to it. Both elements have been developing very distinctive styles and outlooks, based on a combination of their history and ambi- tions. The Lakeman Brothers’ history has been covered in this magazine by Colin Irwin, but to set the context for The Equa- tion, there’s no harm in going back to look at the backgrounds and formative influ- ences of the two halves.
Both Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts have been strongly influenced by their childhood years in folky households. Kate reckons it was all going on in her house.
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