If you have ever seen them on stage, you surely know that they are very funny guys; if Jane was with them, you know that she is always smiling and laughing on stage. With this interview we experienced that Chris and Dennis are also totally crazy, that Jane smiles also when she is not on stage, and we found out their tricks how to get booked...
The setting of the interview: The dressing room at Gosport Easter Festival, at a time when the dressing room is reserved for the Bumblebees. One of the craziest interviews we have ever had...
Do not expect too much information in the following text; here is just a few information: Chris Sherburn plays concertina, Dennis Bartley plays guitar and sings well-known (mainly Irish) songs in a way that nobody can recognize them; and Jane smiles and plays sometimes bodhran...
Describe your music.
Dennis (spontaneous reaction on the first exercise'): Shite! (laughter)
Jane: Hectic.
Chris: Hectic! Very constructive, Jane.
D: Frenzied...
C: Yes, we try to put a lot of excitement into it.
D: Yeah - what we do is a blend of Celtic and something ehm... (door opens, Bumblebee comes in and looks confused at the guys in her dressing room) Come on in it's your room now... (Bumblebee leaves again)
Anyway so it's a cross of Celtic and I suppose a mixture of English songs, folk songs, but we just try to put them in a new direction really.
C: Yes, very rhythmical we try to be. That's Jane's job. Jane's the rhythmical chairman... (another Bumblebee comes in) It's your dressing room we don't mind at all... (takes her fiddle and goes)
D: Great fiddle player.
C: Is she?
D: Yes she is. Anyway...
C: Jane is the rhythmatic...
D: My playing is very percussive as well, so we are two, we are kind of a big rhythm section, and then himself screaming down the middle...
C: Yes, howling down the middle.
D: So we are trying to make it more dancy as well, and aim a bit towards that scene maybe hopefully.
C: Yes kind of roots music...
D: The roots are our label...
C: Yes the roots are our label...
J: Good crack that's in it.
C: I am quite a follower of the Afro Celts Sound System and that kind of roots based type. Yes, and of course I am a follower of FolkWorld... (hehehe)
D: Well what other things do you require... we are playing with each other for about five four years five years this year maybe. We have been playing full time for two.
C: We have met at Whitby Folk Festival it's great festival...
D: And how long have you been in England now I suppose not just for this festival?
Ehm we do not think that this is of interest for our readers now...
Maybe you can say a few words on your musical background?
D: Mine isn't all that folky I guess; it's kind of rock'n'roll and stuff, and I found to folk music by listening to people like Dick Gaughan, Martin Carthy, and people like Joanie Mitchell as well very kind of quite diverse ; so I started playing banjo and mandolin then, and changed to guitar mostly when I met Chris, and because I was singing a lot more together, I was doing a lot more singing so that was it Chris was bred up...
C: I and Jane were born in a folk club!
J: It was English folk music...
C: English folk music, yes. Irish music was our way of rebelling when I was fourteen Jane was sixteen then. We played Irish music for our excitement.
J: Yes, my mum did the folk club for 21 years...
D: You did have people like Christy Moore didn't you? This was twenty years ago...
J: Christy Moore for 12 Pound in 1973...
C: 12 pounds the price of a steak... (laughter)
C: It was fun as you see. --- Over the last few months Alistair Russell has taken over our management. That's moving us a bit so we are doing a few acts now folk clubs, festivals...
D: We have 15 festivals this summer to do.
C: That's 15 drinking experiences... (begins to work with a floor-cloth that stands around in the room) ...and we are cleaning up now!
D: That's how we got into this festival we were cleaning it up at the end of last festival (laughter) quite a few floors anyway, checking a few tunes, says then the guy come in as cleaners', and then we sit down and play a few tunes
C: And - was it Whitby cleaning and Warwick playing a few tunes or...? (big and long laughter; Jane looks like nearly dying from laughing)
C: So it's good, it's good.
J: Chris is a mechanic by trade... (Bumblebee comes in, searches for something, looks confused at Chris with the floor-cloth, leaves)
C: So this is more fun than mounting cars it's cleaner. Yeah why do you play Irish music? `cause it's cleaner. (another big laughter)
D:Yes, yes, that's about it isn't it. It helps with my drinking problem...
C: We have just released our second CD which is doing quite well it's that we have sold five of them now isn't it? That's quite good...(laughter)
D: The last one we have sold 23...
So is it difficult touring full time?
D: I suppose it is financially really. We are beginning to... we are break even at the best of time we are trying to make that...
D: We have done a few tours in America now. We have an agent over there.
C: We have just been on the Folk Alliance as well in Memphis oh we don't know - we meant to be there but... Memphis, Massachusatts it all sounds the same doesn't it...
D: Yeah, we are picking up... We are hoping to do some European stuff soon as well.
Well we still have to add a few things.
Chris and Alistair are both members of the Sherburn family, one of several large and active families in Yorkshire folk music. They have found that their business involvement with each other was encroaching on the pleasures
of family life, and so Alistair is now ceasing his full-time activity as Chris' and Denny's manager, but will of course still be involved in their career on an informal basis.
Our record label, Sound Out Music, will still be administered by Alistair, and business will continue as before in this respect.
Future Chris and Denny gigs will be arranged by the boys themselves from the Goole address. Future Alistair
Russell gigs will be arranged from the Leeds address. The worldwide web site will continue at the current address until a new home can be found for Chris' & Denny's pages, and then it will become Alistair's personal
website. Announcements will be made in the relevant newsgroups.
And here is the Leeds address, as before, for Alistair Russell and Sound Out Music:
Sound Out Management, 6a, Montagu Pl., Leeds LS8 2RG, UK. tel/fax +44(0)113 2269209. email: soundman@soundout.clara.net
Website: http://home.clara.net/soundout/
Photo Credit: All Photos by The Mollis
Latest published CD: Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley with Jane Sherburn "Foothold"; reviewed in last issue
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