Brandywine Bridge first came to my attention when I was a wee boy and my Mum and Dad came home from a night out, bringing with them a copy of their 1978 album, An English Meadow. The only other vaguely folky offering in our house at the time was a budget Donovan sampler on the Pye label. This means that to all intents and purposes, Brandywine Bridge were my first introduction to folk music. Many years later they drifted back into my consciousness when I noticed that An English Meadow and their debut album, The Grey Lady had been reissued on CD by the esoteric and slightly maverick Kissing Spell label. I tracked down Stuart and Sheila Hague from the band and asked them how it all started.

“Our first incarnation was as a 4 piece folk group called 'Folk Formula' which Sheila and I formed when we were still at school,” Stuart tells me. “Sheila was a member of the school folk club.  She sang with her then boyfriend and his mate and I was really knocked out by the way the two chaps played guitar.  This prompted me to start to learn the instrument. Once I’d mastered the obligatory three chords, I asked Sheila if she would like to think about joining up. She did, and Folk Formula was born. The name Brandywine Bridge came about when someone who had heard us sing wanted to write a song for us and to try and get it published.  For this purpose he needed us to have a different name.  We pondered and pondered until eventually, looking in 'Lord of the Rings' for inspiration, I came across the name Brandywine Bridge.”

Along with a few friends, the group formed The Brandywine Folk Club at The Bull's Head in Quorn, Leicestershire.  Sheila and Stuart were the residents and over the several years of its existence, the club not only played host to many guest performers, but also organised concerts, some at the major concert venue, The De Montfort Hall.  Two of the major artists they booked to play there were Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, with supports from the Ripley Wayfarers and The McCalmans.  They also booked concerts by performers like Planxty, Mike Harding and The Corries. At the same time, Sheila and Stuart were also finding time to run a folk programme on Radio Leicester 

During their time running the folk club they met Dave Grew. “Dave proved a very adept musician whenever he came with his band Obsidion or as a soloist doing a floor spot. We asked him to join us, which he did and this was the beginning of a very prolific time in the history of Brandywine Bridge.

“We first went full time in the January of 1976,” Stuart continues. “It was not an auspicious beginning! Previously, we had been playing regular spots at a hotel in Leicester.  One evening, their entertainment director heard us and asked if we would like to do a month’s residency at one of their hotels in Amsterdam. This was difficult, because we were all in employment. Each of us had a desire to play music full time, though, so we said yes and were booked for the following January.

“In the meantime, we had won the regional finals of a national talent competition and were entered for the finals at a major hotel in London. Unfortunately we got disqualified for going over time.  This was a shame as one of the judges, Lynsey De Paul, told us afterwards that had we not been disqualified, we would have won the competition! However, the upshot of this was the first prize for winning the competition was playing for a month in the hotel in Amsterdam where we were already booked.  The band who won the competition went over there and behaved so appallingly that the hotel management cancelled all other scheduled acts who were booked to play... including us. Quandary time! So, I spoke to the Entertainment director who had booked us originally for the Amsterdam gig saying that we had all given up our jobs and were facing the New Year unemployed. Amazingly, she put together a three-month tour of the hotels in the chain, booking us all over the UK. We used this time to make contacts on the folk scene and were able to build up enough bookings to give us some momentum after the hotels gigs stopped.  Also during this time, a fateful event occurred when in Cardiff.  We had a call out the blue from an agent asking us if we could play for a medieval Banquet at Warwick Castle. This we did as a one-off and have been playing there ever since!”

One of the things that immediately strikes the listener to either of Brandywine Bridge’s 1970s albums is that whilst the tune sets tend to be traditional, all the songs are original compositions, albeit with a definite nod towards traditional themes. Stuart explains: “Dave and I realised that we had the chemistry for a song writing team and started to put together a number of original songs, primarily in the folk tradition. Our roots were in folk of all types, traditional and contemporary, from Tom Paxton to Judy Collins to Pentangle. We also enjoyed the influences of the likes of The Seekers and John Denver. We didn't consciously have any influences and just wrote the songs as they came.  I would often take myself off somewhere quiet and let the lyrics come, give them to Dave, who was the tunesmith, and then we would all get together and do the arrangements.”

By this time Brandywine Bridge were not only appearing at folk clubs up and down the country, but were also playing in regularly in Germany, Sweden and Norway. We met some terrific musicians,” remembers Stuart. “We were playing one night when Bo Diddly's band came in to listen and ended up jamming with us... an amazing night!
We were also involved in a number of Combined Services Tours, playing to the troops or 'Doing our Vera Lynn Bit' as we used to say. We had several tours of Northern Ireland during the troubles. We were also lucky enough to go on one of these tours to Belize with the likes of Bonnie Dobson and Wally Whiten.”

The band were approached by John Golding of Cottage Records and recorded 'The Grey Lady' (1977) and 'An English Meadow' (1978) with him, both of which have since become collectable.  “The Grey Lady album was a mixture of original and traditional songs and tunes,” Stuart tells us. “The later albums, including 'Aperitif' (1981), which was recorded by 'Q' Studios in Queniborough, Leicestershire, were all self penned. The Aperitif album was reflective of the change in style the band had been steadily making over a period of time, moving away from a traditional sound. This album included drums and electrification, which we had not done before. Just before this recording we had incorporated a young bass player called Steve Ward, who enhanced the style of music we had drifted towards in the latter days. It's also nice to know that over the years several of our songs have been recorded by other artists. All the albums were very well received - when tracks from The Grey Lady were played by John Peel, who actually liked them, then you knew they weren't too bad.”

In common with other songwriters whose music has a traditional folk flavour to it, Stuart has sometimes seen the origins of Brandywine Bridge’s material get lost in the ether. “One downside to our style of writing in the tradition has been where a song has been sung or played on the radio and has been classed as 'Traditional' with no acknowledgement as to who the writers actually were,” he reflects. “I've even sat in folk clubs and heard a singer announce 'An English Meadow' as traditional. I suppose this should be taken as a compliment! Oh well, I suppose it could be said 'No one knows how famous we are!'

In 1981, the band split at a time when Dave was getting very much into humour and moving the band away from its root direction.  Stuart explains, “This course was not too popular with Sheila and myself nor with a number of our fans. So Sheila and I decided to call it a day. This was actually good timing for us, as we were looking to start a family. Dave was a superb musician and entertainer who went on to great things. Sheila and I contented ourselves with doing the music part time.  

“We asked a friend called Alan Buckley if he would like to join us for some gigs as well as doing his own solo work.  This he did and the next chapter in the life of Brandywine Bridge started in earnest.  Very soon we were working even more than we had previously.  By this time we had entered the corporate market and were playing at weddings, street fayres concerts and clubs. We also started a ceilidh band. We were even booked to play a long weekend in Hong Kong! We made another album, mainly for Warwick Castle, called 'And So to the Fair: Brandywine Bridge Play Songs of Warwick Castle' (1996).  This wasn’t quite right really as they were all self penned! This lasted until Alan emigrated to Australia in 2007 and was replaced by Dick Churchley who has to be one of the best accordion players Sheila and I have ever heard.

“We have never really been authentic medieval musicians,” Stuart admits, “but we like to give a flavour. Over the years we’ve learnt who our audiences are and what type of music to give them and it seems to work. In truth, we never were aficionados of the folk scene. We knew what we liked and what we didn't.  We wrote and performed the songs that we liked and hoped the audiences would go along with us - by and large they did and were very generous.  We took a gamble by going out to the clubs with all original material together with an entertaining presentation. Luckily it seemed to work.

“Nowadays,” Stuart concludes, “We still play at Warwick Castle, still do corporate days, birthdays, special occasions, retirement homes, weddings and ceilidhs. We're still pretty active and, what’s important, still enjoying it.”

http://www.brandywinebridge.co.uk/