

					Biographical Stuff

Chris and Siobhan first got together back in the mid-1980s, when they were both members of The Cluster of Nuts Band, who were part of the British 'rogue folk' movement back in the 1980s. Siobhan joined the band shortly after release of their acclaimed album Fridge in the Fast Lane (which featured such folk luminaries as Ian Telfer of the Oyster Band, John Adams of the New Victory Band [etc.] and Cathy Lesurf of the Albion Band). Chris and Siobhan have been members of various other bands over the years; see 'Previous Musical Activities' on the main menu for more information. They've just started doing occasional gigs with the 'Nuts' again - click here for more about this (including photos).

Chris and Siobhan have appeared at numerous festivals and folk clubs over the years, in their various guises: as a duo, and as members of Cluster of Nuts, New St George (the UK one), Nelsons Wake, Loose Screws Appalachian Dancers & String Band and Kaleidoscope; Chris was also a member of the Midnight Flyers and currently plays with the Merseybillies. In their current incarnation, as a duo, Chris and Siobhan have run festival workshops on Appalachian Clogging for Beginners and Home Recording.

They spent many years living in Southampton, Hampshire, before relocating to Southport, Merseyside, where they are residents at the Bothy Folk Club.

SIOBHAN'S BIOGRAPHICAL RAMBLINGS!

I was born and bred in East Ham, London, and moved to south-east London when I was 13.
I first demonstrated my passion for singing at a very young age, frequently subjecting my family to a rendition of the entire score of Oliver! (and that's the original stage version, with 3 extra songs that didn't make it into the film), in the appropriate voices... this usually took place when everyone was trying to get to sleep! However, I was too shy to let anyone else hear me sing solo until I was about 20.
First time I ever plucked up the courage to get up and sing in a folk club was in about 1980/81, at Dartford Folk club... a very nervous rendition of Alan Hull's Winter Song; it's still one of my absolute favourite songs to sing. Between that terrified debut and joining Cluster of Nuts, I was in a duo with multi-instrumentalist/songwriter John Eastaugh (who later played bass with Rod Stradling's Feckless).

My greatest musical influences have definitely been Maddy Prior/Steeleye/Tim & Maddy and Sandy Denny/Fairport, but there have been many others over the years, such as: Abbie Lathe (especially for her vocal coaching expertise), the Dransfields, Shirley Collins, June Tabor, Lindisfarne, Muckram Wakes, Julie Covington, the BBC radio & TV schools' programmes Singing Together & Making Music, The Seekers, Dusty Springfield, Wally Whyton, Georgia Brown (the original, and greatest, 'Nancy' in Oliver!), and my mum (who is still in possession of a wonderful bluesy voice - she regularly raises the rafters at the Bothy Folk Club).
My favourite singers/bands (both current and 'all-time'): all those mentioned above, plus John Tams, Barry Dransfield, Tim van Eyken, The Home Service, Jack the Lad, Billy Mitchell, Blowzabella, Ella Fitzgerald, The Crooked Jades, The Volo Bogtrotters, The Roches, XTC, The Scissor Sisters, Queen, Cat Stevens (as was), Kate Bush, Abba... the list is endless.

My earliest favourite record was Ivor Cutler's EP Get Away From The Wall, which I would make my mum play over and over again - the man was a genius (Turtle in My Soup, from that very EP, is in the Chris & Siobhan repertoire). Eventually got to see him on stage in the 1990s; the room was full of bright young things who thought they'd discovered something new... and there was I feeling really old, and smug, having been a fan of his for 3 decades! My mum worked in a record shop for many years, right up until the late 60s, and - due to her eclectic musical tastes - I was exposed to all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff (like Ivor Cutler) in my formative years.

1st record I ever owned: Ramblin' Jack Elliott's Kid Stuff EP (the aforementioned Ivor Cutler EP was my mum's, so it doesn't count!)
1st album I ever bought for myself: Bowie's Ziggy Stardust (bought with my first - extremely meagre - pay packet from a Saturday job in London's Oxford Street)
1st gig I ever attended: T. Rex, Fairfield Halls, Croydon, c.1971. Oh, how I loved them - I can remember crying when Get It On was knocked off the top of the charts by Diana Ross's I'm Still Waiting... now fancy admitting to that!
By 1973, I was a fan of Lindisfarne (the posters on my bedroom wall at the time were Lindisfarne and Alice Cooper - bit of a weird combination, that), so I already had stirrings of a liking for folkie things - and, of course, the 'sanitised' folk songs on BBC schools programmes (as mentioned above) had made an impression on me. Also, apparently, my mum used to borrow folk records from the library when I was very, very young, so maybe it was a case of there being something lying dormant in me that would be awakened later.
I'm not sure whether I'd ever have really started getting seriously into folk music, though, if I hadn't happened to switch on the TV one evening in early 1974, and find myself watching Steeleye Span in one of their Electric Folk programmes (I'd love to see that series again!). It was Maddy Prior singing One Misty Moisty Morning that really did it for me. It wasn't until I first saw Steeleye 'live' (Rocket Cottage tour, Hammersmith Odeon) that I really started to wish I could be up on stage singing, too. It took a few more years before I finally managed to get rid of my painful shyness, though.

Greatest musical regret: Not getting around to buying myself a ticket for what turned out to be Sandy Denny's final gig (Royalty Theatre, London, in 1977) - pure laziness, as it was just round the corner from where I worked at the time. So I never got to see her 'live' on stage... I still want to kick myself for that!

My first job was working in the record department of W.H. Smiths in Kingsway, London, where I would inflict my own tastes in music on unsuspecting customers through the speakers (at the time, that was Queen and 10cc, with a healthy smattering of Steeleye, Fairport and Shirley Collins creeping in). I've followed a convoluted career path over the years, and eventually ended up as a librarian/cataloguer in a University Library. I'm the mad fool who took on the daunting task of compiling the fRoots reviews index. It's taken a long time, working through every issue ever published, but it's finally bang up to date. Now it's just a case of keeping it that way! You can find the index on the fRoots web site.

As well as singing, I've also been in several dance teams over the years. The first team I was with was a Molly side run by Danny Stradling in Cricklade, Wiltshire (where I was living during the mid-1980s); after moving to Southampton, I joined Hampshire Garland ladies traditional team - but I soon developed a total addiction to Appalachian Clogging, and everything else fell by the wayside! Chris & I, and our good friends Maureen & Barry Wake, were founder members of Loose Screws Appalachian Dancers in Southampton (with Chris & Barry playing in the accompanying string band). When Loose Screws eventually folded after 10 great years, an (occasional) team called Kaleidoscope sprang from the ashes. More about Kaleidoscope and Loose Screws here.

CHRIS'S BIT

I was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire and we lived in Leeds until I was four, when we moved to Potters Bar, Herts. My dad was a music teacher, and encouraged me from an early age. I have very fond memories of music at primary school - playing the recorder in school concerts, singing in the choir and (like Siobhan) loving the BBC schools' radio programmes (particularly Time and Tune). I also remember attending the Robert Mayer childrens's concerts at the Royal Festival Hall when I was at primary school; quite a privilege, in retrospect. Choral music was a favourite in our house; my dad conducted the Enfield Choral Society and for a year or two, in my teens, I sang bass with them. I also sang with the Hertfordshire County Youth Choir for two or three years - a fantastic musical experience.
At the age of about eleven, I began violin lessons. However, I was never going to be a violinist - I didn't work hard enough, for one thing! After failing my Grade 6 exam (my excuse, in the heat wave of 1976, was that my fingers were sweaty) I gave up the violin, and took up the fiddle instead!
I had discovered folk music through hearing Steeleye Span on Radio 1 and seeing them on Top of the Pops. With my friend Bill Leslie on guitar, I worked out a few jigs and reels, inspired by the folk-rock bands of the day, particularly Jack the Lad, who remain one of my all-time favourite bands of all time! We went off to the St Albans Folk Festival and saw, among others, Roy Bailey, June Tabor and Nic Jones. I was hooked - this was the music that really spoke to me!

In 1977, I started a degree course at the University of Surrey in Guildford and immediately signed up as fiddle player with the university's Stag Hill Morris. This was my first experience of playing for dancing (and was a great excuse not to dance myself). After a few weeks, somebody wanted musicians for a barn dance - and the first line-up of the Cluster of Nuts Band was born (shame about the name). I played in a series of barn dance/ceilidh bands for the next twenty years (Cluster of Nuts, the short-lived Nork Trellis Band and the New St George). All of these bands also featured concert material, with Siobhan as singer.

I'd been playing music mainly from the British Isles (of which I find English tunes the most natural to play) when a craze for Appalachian clogging swept across the country (although 99.9% of the population probably didn't notice). I found myself playing fiddle for an old time string band (with another Chris and three guys named Barry). In the summer of 1991 Siobhan and I went over to the Augusta Heritage Center at Elkins, West Virginia; Siobhan took part in the Fiddle Puppets' dance workshops while I did the string band course, led by Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers. My fiddle playing was never the same again! Around this time I also started venturing occasionally into bluesy territory with Arnie Cottrell and, a little later, the Midnight Flyers (led by Arnie and Pete Harris) was formed.

My musical influences include Dave Swarbrick, Peter Knight, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Jack the Lad, Lindisfarne, The Beatles, Ralph Blizard, The Seekers, The Volo Bogtrotters, Richard Thompson, The New Victory Band, The English Country Blues Band ....

1st musical memory: hearing Handel's Messiah on my dad's record player at the age of about three.

1st record I ever bought: Beatles 1962-1966 (it nearly broke the bank!).

1st proper gig attended: Jack the Lad at the Marquee Club, London, 1976.

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They spent many years living in Southampton, Hampshire, before relocating to Southport, Merseyside, where they are residents at the Bothy Folk Club.

SIOBHAN'S BIOGRAPHICAL RAMBLINGS!

I was born and bred in East Ham, London, and moved to south-east London when I was 13.

1st record I ever owned: Ramblin' Jack Elliott's Kid Stuff EP (the aforementioned Ivor Cutler EP was my mum's, so it doesn't count!)

1st album I ever bought for myself: Bowie's Ziggy Stardust (bought with my first - extremely meagre - pay packet from a Saturday job in London's Oxford Street)

1st gig I ever attended: T. Rex, Fairfield Halls, Croydon, c.1971. Oh, how I loved them - I can remember crying when Get It On was knocked off the top of the charts by Diana Ross's I'm Still Waiting... now fancy admitting to that!

CHRIS'S BIT

At the age of about eleven, I began violin lessons. However, I was never going to be a violinist - I didn't work hard enough, for one thing! After failing my Grade 6 exam (my excuse, in the heat wave of 1976, was that my fingers were sweaty) I gave up the violin, and took up the fiddle instead!