Therevival of English folk music carries on apace on the back of the success of bands like Mumford And Sons and, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Decemberists.
But double BBC award winners The Young’uns are a little different. On first hearing the close harmonies of the three lads from Stockton-on-Tees in England’s north east, Sean Cooney, Michael Hughes and David Eagle, may remind older listeners of 1960s a cappella trio The Young Tradition [ . . . ]
In 2003, three teenagers started frequenting the Sun Inn in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham. In the back room, they found the Stockton Folk Club in full voice. “We didn’t even know there was a folk club,” says David Eagle, the trio’s baritone, sitting in the self-same room today. “When someone started singing, I thought, ‘What the heck?’ But we stayed to listen.” [ . . . ]
The north-east of England boasts an enviably rich seam of fine folk musicians, past and present. Artists as diverse as the late Vin Garbutt, Alex Glasgow and The Unthanks have all found universal acclaim with songs that are steeped in particular local detail. Perhaps the one thing that links them is their ability to be both intensely personal and unabashedly political, often in the same stroke, a quality that reflects the area’s rich working-class industrial heritage, its bleak natural beauty and the hardships and joys that those things bring.
Teessiders The Young’uns are the latest in a long line of hugely talented singers and musicians to bring the singular, distinctive sound of the region to a wider audience. The trio – singer-songwriter Sean Cooney and singers Michael Hughes and David Eagle – have been around for a while now.Strangers is their fourth album, and they have been a popular feature on the folk circuit for a decade, but in the last two or three years their appeal has deservedly blossomed, thanks to rave reviews [ . . . ]
