A’reet man, Tim Hughes banters with canny Geordie songbird Rachel Unthank, whose band are the stars of next weekend’s Wood Festival.
SHIP wrecks, separation, child labour, wife-beating, suicide and poverty.
Sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank choose all the cheerful subjects.
But, then, they would argue, such things are the stuff of life.
The Geordie duo perform stripped-down folk, with lyrics rooted in the gritty past of their native Northumbria.
It is powerful, bittersweet stuff delivered in a fragile, sparse style and rich dialect – which only adds to the misty melancholia.
“The songs are quite dark and gloomy,” admits Gateshead lass Rachel. “Our songs are about the human condition, and are still relevant now. They are about life, love and loss – and quite a few deaths. There is a lot of darkness, but they’re not all miserable. Though, the more dark and complex the stories are, the more interesting they are to tell. Everyone loves a good cry.”
Along with her eight years younger clog-dancing sister, Rachel has been performing since an early age, spending her younger years being dragged around the folk clubs of the North East.
“I remember listening to folk songs as a child, and it felt like entering a magical world,” she says. But it was after setting up her band Rachel Unthank & The Winterset that the world beyond the Tyne and Tees valleys started to take notice – and in 2004 she was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize for album The Bairns.
Now expanded into a full band (with band manager Adrian McNally on piano, Chris Price on guitar, ukelele and dulcitone, and Niopha Keegan on violin) and calling themselves The Unthanks, they are back with new album Here’s The Tender Coming, which is filled with more evocative, and salty, fayre.
“I love these songs and want other people to love them too,” says Rachel, talking to me from a concert hall in the Portuguese city of Braga, after a five-week European tour.
And after dates in such glamourous spots as Florence, Vienna and Rome, they return home for a big city UK tour, which starts a week on Sunday… in Wallingford. Or, to be precise, up in the trees nearby for Wood Festival – a green, low carbon spin-off of the annual summer Truck Festival. The site, in a clearing on the edge of the Chilterns, is the perfect stage for The Unthanks’ timeless songs, and comes before sets at Glastonbury, Green Man and Cambridge Folk festivals.
“The tour is fabulous,” says Rachel. “We’ve got to see loads of new places, have a look around, and then sing at the end of the day.
“We’ve played in Florence, Rome and Paris, which are places I’d always dreamt of going to.”
So how has their peculiarly Northern-brand of story-telling gone down in such distant ports as Bergen and Valencia?
“It’s been different in every country, but it has gone down well,” she says. “Music is a strong communicator on its own; you don’t have to speak the language, which is just as well, because even when we go down South people don’t understand us!”
The sea runs through much of their songs; not a cosy, romantic sea, but a cruel and violent one. Rachel admits it’s an inevitable consequence of living close to the North Sea, kicking around the storm-lashed coasts of Northumberland, North Yorkshire, and her father’s native Teesside.
Then there was her dad, whose own band The Keelers, sang a pretty good line in sea shanties.
“It’s an interesting area,” she adds. “There’s always been a lot of hardship, but also lots of humour, warmth and beauty. Look at a place like Middlesbrough – it may not be the most beautiful place, but just over the hill is all this stunning scenery.
“I’m proud to be from the North East. The area has a strong sense of identity and is aware that it is not like any other part of England. When people think of folk music they think of Scotland and Ireland, but we also have our own beautiful songs and dances.”
While still enjoying the tail end of their European tour, she confesses she can’t wait to get to Wood.
“This is why we do this,” she giggles. “We only started because we thought it was a great way of getting into festivals for free.
“I still feel lucky to be able to tour like this. When we started off we never imagined we’d be doing this.
“Even when we brought out our first album, we were only doing it to please ourselves – and if other people liked it, that was fabulous. And that’s how we still feel. We’ll carry on doing it for as long as people like it.”
* The Unthanks play Wood Festival, at Braziers Park, near Wallingford on May 23. The festival runs from May 21-23. Tickets for the weekend are £70 (£50 for ages 13-17, and free to 12s and under). Go to wegottickets.com.
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