Jack Rutter at The Greystones

Jack Rutter is an English folk singer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist from West Yorkshire who performs both as a solo artist, having released two albums, as well as performing with a variety of renowned folk musicians such as Sam Sweeney, Seth Lakeman and Jackie Oates. Jack grew up surrounded by a wealth of traditional folk song which influences the rare and previously unrecorded folk songs that he sings today.

For this recording session we went to The Greystones which is a popular Thornbridge Brewery Pub in Sheffield. At the front of the venue there is a traditional community pub that provides a range of food, drinks and snacks for people to enjoy in the comfortable surroundings. Whereas around the back of the venue, in the aptly named Backroom, there is a performance space that holds regular live music gigs, private functions and children’s parties. Having hosted a number of folk musicians from Andy Cutting, Martin Simpson and John Reilly, The Greystones captures the joyful, cosy setting found at most folk clubs where musicians are invited to perform and relax together.

The first song we recorded with Jack was “If drinking don’t kill me (her memory will)” an early 80s Nashville country song made famous by George Jones.

Second, we recorded “Down by the Derwent Side”, an English folk song based in Derbyshire, aptly names after the popular River Derwent, a 66mile long tributary of the River Trent. Having thought to be first heard in 1891, the lyrics tell the story of a man (the singer) who tried to persuade a women, who is helping her father tend the sheep, to marry him.

Finally, we recorded another old American Folk song that was collected in Yorkshire in the early 20th Century, “Wait for the Waggon”. It is thought to have originated as a parlour song (a song that would have been performed in parlour houses by singer and pianists) that now has a variety of versions that have derived from the original.