Folk duo Betse & Clarke, from Kansas City, Missouri, will travel to Scotland in September-October 2018 to present their engaging musical show. The Moniaive Michaelmas Bluegrass Festival invited Betse Ellis (long known for her energetic style in her former band The Wilders) and Clarke Wyatt (an engaging finger-style banjo player) as a feature act after festival organizers witnessed a performance at Northern Ireland’s Red Room (Co. Tyrone) in autumn of 2016. In addition, celebrated venues such as Tolbooth (Stirling), Eastgate Theatre (Peebles), The Acoustic Music Club (Kirkcaldy), and Watercolour Music (Fort William) are presenting the duo in concert.
When I spoke to Betse about the tour, she mentioned that one of the gigs, a Heriot house concert, was thanks to Sarah McFadyen. Sarah is now a member of The Poozies, it’s her you can hear singing on their new video we recently premiered here – it’s a small world.
She added, “Sarah is a great friend who I met preparing for that tour “Going Across the Sea”, organized by Tim Matthews, back in 2009, and there’s a great back story to that: Back when The Wilders played Festival Fringe, 2006-2008, Tim was the sound engineer at the venue we performed, The Famous Spiegeltent. Tim and I became good friends and I also became a great fan of his band Mystery Juice. I believe it would have been in 2008 when, playing some tunes with Tim backstage, I suggested we might try to do something to collaborate and celebrate the fiddle tunes shared on both sides of the ocean. Next thing I knew, after returning home, Tim wrote me to say he’d been working on making a tour and then, he successfully gained a grant from the Scottish Arts Council. The lineup was Tim, Sarah, myself, Kris Drever, Eamonn Coyne, Caleb Klauder and Sammy Lind (these last two, great friends of mine from Foghorn Stringband, who I recruited). We did a two-week tour in spring of 2009 as a result of one small idea put forth in a two-person music session…”
Watch their video below, a free improvisation on the fiddle tune Farewell Whisky. Betse and Clarke are joined by Johnny Hamil on bass.
Betse met Clarke Wyatt in 2014, two years after The Wilders called a halt to their 16-year run. Clarke, a lifelong musician, formerly primarily a keyboardist who toured for many years with percussionist Mike Dillon in the band Hairy Apes BMX, performing at New Orleans Jazz Fest, High Sierra, and more, had taken up the banjo, forming a deep connection to the early southern American finger-style banjo approach. Clarke had the musical deftness to interweave his instrument with Betse’s fiddling, making a clear connection to the fiddle-banjo duets of the American south of the 1920s and 30s. At the same time, the duo’s creative spark inspired them to compose new material that sounds both old time and completely fresh. They released a full length album in 2016 and Scott Tichenor of Banjo Café wrote “The Banjo Café considers River Still Rise to be one of the very finest releases of 2016, and one that should be a part of every music lover’s collection. A stunning collection that forces old-time music to take a fresh look at where its been and where its headed.”
Betse & Clarke have gone on to appear as official showcase artists at Folk Alliance International, and on stage at Grand Targhee Bluegrass, The John Hartford Memorial Festival, Walnut Valley Festival, and at the Ulster American Folk Park’s Bluegrass Festival, among many others. Their performance is suited for festival stages just as easily as at a house concert; they are comfortable and friendly with each audience and their music radiates joy and an invitation to get involved through singing and dancing. Audiences of all ages are equally charmed. Betse will go from singing a traditional Ozark spiritual to belting out a blues-inflected old time country hit, while Clarke drives the rhythm with his mad banjo and guitar skills, weaving melody and harmony with the masterful groove of a veteran musician.
Don’t miss them!
Betse & Clarke Scotland Tour Dates
20 September: Acoustic Music Club (Association of Polish Veterans), Kirkcaldy
21 September: Tolbooth, Stirling
22 September: Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
24 September: “Travelling Folk” on BBC, Inverness (pre-taping)
24 September: MacGregor’s Bar, Inverness
28-30 September: Moniaive Michaelmas Bluegrass Festival, Moniaive
03 October: Buccleuch Arms, Moffat
05 October: Private House Concert, Heriot
07 October: Watercolour Music, Ardgour (Mary Ann Kennedy’s studio)
https://www.betseandclarke.com/