Clive gave his first public performance at the age of eight as a very nervous, and partly hidden, harmonica player but he has been performing in full view at folk clubs and festivals for more than twenty-five years now. He is particularly fond of English traditional songs and shanties but also sings contemporary pieces written in the traditional vein. He has performed at venues in most parts of England with occasional excursions into Scotland and Wales as well as in Holland, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA.
Clive also sings as a member of The Laners, whose website is here and as one half of Tom Perry & Clive Brooks whose website is here. He made his first CD as half of another a cappella duo in 2005 and has provided chorus/backing vocals and/or instrumental accompaniment on half-a-dozen CDs for other performers. As well as singing both solo and in various groupings, he has played for two groups of Appalachian dancers and a Morris side and was also a member of a well-established ceilidh band.
Des has been around the folk scene since a teenager but only plucked up the courage to start singing in clubs in the late seventies when he returned to his native town, Coventry. He has been a member of Earlsdon and Plum Jerkum Morris sides and for a short time was the Foreman and then Squire of Plum Jerkum. He performs solo and unaccompanied at local folk clubs in the area, was for some years one of the MC committee at the Harbury FC and has been a regular MC at the Warwick Folk Festival. He is also a member of the Warwickshire Singers’ Circle.
In the last few years Des has sung with Ninepenny Marl (four-part harmony) and now with Thrup’nny Bits (three-part harmony), whose website is here, as well as with Sharp as Razors. While he has always wanted to learn a musical instrument this skill has sadly eluded him. Thus his singing has always been unaccomplished and Acapulco (one MC once introduced him as one of the best unaccomplished singers in Warwickshire while another club organiser introduced Ninepenny Marl as Acapulco).
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Those of you who have seen us before will know that we were originally a quartet. Alan Whitbread, who suggested that we get together to form Sharp As Razors back in 2009, died in March 2020 having not been well for some time, and Vaughan Hully has recently decided to haul down the sails and will no longer be performing as part of the group. It was good to sing and spend time with them both.