Folk band hopes werewolf songs will be a howling success…
A concert of songs about legendary tales of English werewolves is being taken on tour by South West-based folk act the Wren Band.
The band – formed specially by the eight musicians of Wren Music to mark the folk music charity’s 30th anniversary – is taking the show on tour this summer and is hoping the popularity of all things werewolf and vampire will bring a new audience to traditional English folk music.
The concert, which premieres at Exeter Northcott Theatre on 2 June, features 21 songs and two stories – all about legendary creatures.
“It’s a very werewolf and canine-influenced show,” said Marilyn Tucker, artistic director of Okehampton-based Wren Music.
The concert uses stories in Sabine Baring-Gould’s folklore writing including his famous work The Book of Were-wolves as the inspiration for the show. Story collector Baring-Gould (1834-1924), who lived in Devon, researched the tales and wrote them down in his books, capturing the legends for future generations.
The band looked at the stories and then sifted through the archive of traditional folk songs to find those which matched the tales. They have also penned new songs about some of Dartmoor’s best known folklore stories.
Marilyn says that although most of the stories are old, they will resonate with a 21st century audience: “There is a whole new generation of people who are really interested in folklore and we are hoping they might like to explore the music as well because the two go together. And references from Baring-Gould’s folklore writings are now appearing in popular culture such as J K Rowling's Harry Potter novels.
“We felt that this was too good an opportunity to miss, with our knowledge of folklore and folk songs, and this new-found interest in the whole area of werewolves. So we’ve put the two together.
“One thing that we did find out is that in English culture, there aren’t many werewolves – but there are a lot of werefoxes.”
Hounds also play a part in the concert, which is entitled When The Moon Is Full, as Marilyn explained: “We do know that Baring-Gould corresponded with Arthur Conan Doyle when Conan Doyle was researching The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was obviously based on Dartmoor. And here in Okehampton, we think we’ve got the genesis of The Hound of the Baskervilles with Lady Howard’s Black Dog.”
The story goes that each night, the ghost of Lady Howard travels from Tavistock to Okehampton Castle in a coach made of the bones of her four husbands - with a huge black dog running ahead of the coach. Baring-Gould collected a song from his nurse, called My Lady’s Coach, which has been newly-arranged for the concert.
“Some of the famous stories of Dartmoor didn’t make it into folk songs, so we’ve written some. Another song that we’ve created is The Hairy Hand, which is the story that most children around here and particularly in Plymouth know very well.
“This is a very interesting piece of folklore because it’s a 20th century myth. It’s the story of how the hairy hand comes across the handlebars of a motorbike and takes it off the road. For me, this bridges the gap between older folklore and urban tales.”
The tour is a rare chance for the musicians at Wren to get together and play; usually, they work separately on musical projects in communities across the South West: “This is the first time all eight of us have done this together,” said Marilyn.
“The whole process has been really exciting. We’re working entirely as a team and it is a fabulous way of working.”
The eight members are co-founders of Wren Music Paul Wilson and Marilyn; bagpipe player David Faulkner; vocalists Sarah Owen and Rosa Rebecka; mandolin player and story-teller Matt Norman and duet Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll on fiddles and vocals.
The tour takes the band from Exeter to Poole, Derby, Bristol, Islington in London, Penzance and Falmouth.
“It’s lovely to be able to get out there and play at venues where there is a strong following in folk music but at the same time we want to bring the stories and the music to a new audience as well.”
The Tour:
June 2nd: Exeter, Northcott
June 6th: Lighthouse, Poole
June 28th: Darwin Suite, Derby
June 29th: Colston Hall, Bristol
July 12th: Union Chapel, Islington
July 18th: Acorn, Penzance
July 19th: The Poly, Falmouth
For more information about Wren Music, please visit:
www.wrenmusic.co.uk
