Bob Davenport

Robert H. Davenport — known to the folk world simply as Bob — was one of Britain's most distinctive traditional singers, a Geordie voice of uncommon power and warmth whose life spanned nearly a century of music, hardship, and joyful noise. Born on 31 May 1932 in Gateshead, County Durham, he came into a world already marked by tragedy: at just ten months old, he survived a devastating gas explosion that destroyed the family home and took the lives of his father Thomas, aged only 23, and his grandfather. He grew up carrying that loss quietly, but he also grew up in music — distantly related to George Ridley, the writer of the beloved Northumbrian song "Blaydon Races," and shaped by a region whose folk traditions ran as deep as the coal seams beneath it. After completing National Service in the Royal Air Force, Bob moved to London in 1953 to work for the General Post Office, studying at Saint Martin's School of Art by day and finding his true calling in the folk clubs of Camden by night. Encouraged by the Irish Traveller singer Margaret Barry, he became a fixture at the Bedford Arms and won awards as the best amateur folk singer in London. In 1959, he recorded his first EP, "Geordie Songs," with Reg Hall and Michael Plunkett — the nucleus of what became the Rakes, a quartet that would endure for four decades. From the early 1960s, Bob stood at the heart of the British folk revival. He ran folk clubs in north London, championing unpolished, working-class voices and the songs that told their stories. In 1963, at Pete Seeger's personal invitation, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island alongside Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Around the same time, he was cited alongside Martin Carthy as an early influence on Dylan during the young American's visits to London's folk clubs — a mark of the esteem in which he was held. Bob's singing was a phenomenon in itself. He had a quiet speaking voice that belied his big-voiced, full-throated style — somewhere between shouting and singing, melodic and raw at once. He was also known for his hilarious monologues between songs, his political instincts ("not a great fan of the ruling classes," as those who knew him put it), and his ability to hold a room through sheer presence and wit. As fellow folk musician Mike Harding described him, Bob was "a singer and a fighter in the Woody Guthrie mould." He recorded prolifically across five decades, contributing to landmark collections including "Sea Shanties" (1963), "Northumbrian Minstrelsy" (1964), and "Folksound of Britain" (1965), and releasing albums with the Marsden Rattlers and the Rakes on the Topic label. In 2004, he released "The Common Stone," a deeply personal album dedicated to his father and featuring collaborations with Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy, the Watersons, and Chumbawamba. Bob Davenport passed away in September 2026, aged 94. He leaves behind a body of work that preserved and celebrated the working-class traditions of the north of England, and a legacy as one of the folk revival's warmest, most uncompromising spirits.