Singer Bob Davenport revisits musical roots
Nov 4 2010 by Tamzin Lewis, The Journal
ONE of Britain’s great folk voices, Bob Davenport, has returned to his roots for an evening of song, as TAMZIN LEWIS discovers.
BOB Davenport is the sort of person you can’t really do justice to in a newspaper article: you need to hear his stories from his own lips.
Born in 1932, he was just 10 months old when he survived a catastrophic gas explosion which killed his father and grandfather. His family home in Gateshead was destroyed and Bob was taken from the wreckage wrapped in blankets.
Throughout his childhood, music was an important part of family life and he started performing at a young age while he was an evacuee during the Second World War.
In the 1950s Bob left Tyneside for London where he sang traditional tunes and held folk nights at Irish pubs. He made a name for himself and was prominent during the folk music revival in the early 1960s when he was invited to perform with Bob Dylan in the United States.
His uncompromising, powerful and gritty style of singing has made him highly influential to generations of musicians and Northumbrian piper and composer Kathryn Tickell has asked him to perform at The Sage Gateshead as part of a unique series of concerts.
In what promises to be a special night in Hall Two, Bob will be in conversation with Mike Tickell (Kathryn’s dad) and will perform accompanied by Kathryn on the fiddle and by melodeon player Hazel Askew.
Bob, 78, says: “I was 10 months old when my dad was killed. It was an explosion which became a local cause celebre. Gateshead Corporation and the gas company fought over who was negligent. I found the papers later.”
He continues: “I was brought up by my mother with help from her family and, aged seven, was evacuated to Yorkshire. I sang one night at a club and someone told me later that practically every song was about leaving, dying or being exiled from your homeland.”
In the 1950s Bob moved to Camden Town in London where he started singing in Irish pub The Bedford.
“People used to say if you wanted to know where The Bedford is you could hear me and Margaret (another traditional singer) from the tube station. Someone heard me singing there and put me forward for a competition. From then I entered the folk world.”
One of the highpoints of his career came in 1963 when singer Pete Seeger, who was instrumental to the American folk music revival, asked Bob to perform at the 1963 Newport Festival on Rhode Island. Bob appeared on stage with Bob Dylan when the festival was in its heyday.
