The Yetties (John "Bonny" Sartin, Pete Shutler, and Mac McCulloch) were an English

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

group, who took their name from the

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

village of Yetminster, their childhood home. In 1975, they released an album entitled '' The Yetties of Yetminster''. The Yetties retired in 2011.

History

There are two ex-members: Bob Common and Roger Trim. The former left during the 1970s, to spend more time with his family. Until Trim joined, The Yetties then operated as a trio. Trim introduced fiddle-playing to the group, and their sound changed somewhat during his stay. Since the latter's departure, The Yetties have again operated as a trio. Sartin was lead singer and group-compere, addressing the audience more than the other two. However, his colleagues both led some songs and both joked with the audience. Shutler played keyboard, though mainly he was a very accomplished

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

player, inspired by the playing of Scotland's

Jimmy Shand Sir James Shand (28 January 1908 – 23 December 2000) was a Scottish musician who played traditional Scottish dance music on the accordion. His signature tune was "The Bluebell Polka". Life and career James Shand was born in East Wemyss in ...

; McCulloch played guitar and

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

. Since turning professional in 1967, their music took them from Dorset all over the UK; appearing extensively in Europe and, under the auspices of the British Council, they performed successfully in many countries, including Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, Sudan, India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Canada. One of the secrets of their success, and way of breaking down language barriers, has been their knack of audience participation. Over the years they recorded 45 albums (on various labels). Most of these were a mixture of songs, instrumental folk-dance music and poetry. They also undertook topic-based projects. The Dorset writer,

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

, was also a musician; he and his family, over several generations, collected hundreds of folk tunes. The Yetties made two recordings on Thomas Hardy's own fiddle and other Hardy family instruments. Another Yetties' projects involved recording a collection of songs and stories about cricketers of the past with

John Arlott Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's ''Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he bec ...

. The Yetties broadcast a regular

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

series, ''Cider & Song''. They also made numerous other radio and television appearances. They were often asked back to locations, becoming regular performers at various annual events, including the Farnham Beer Exhibition and many more. The Yetties lived in

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish includes the hamlets of Nether Coombe and Lower Clatcombe. T ...

(a few miles from Yetminster) and drew on their personal experiences of country life for their concert programmes. Some songs recalled life when they were children, helping farmers harvest; scrumping apples; raiding hedges, fields and woods for food and eating rabbit for seemingly every meal. They talked of village characters and village occasions, conveying an atmosphere of bygone village society.

Retirement

The Yetties announced their retirement in early 2010, and their final performance was a ceilidh and concert at Sherborne in April 2011. On the evening of 21 September 2014, it was announced on the official Yetties website that Pete Shutler had died in Sherborne Hospital. Mac McCulloch passed away on December 15th 2021.

Album discography

#''Fifty Stone of Loveliness'' (1969) #''Who's A-fear'd?'' (1970) #''Keep A-Runnin' - It's The Yetties!'' (1970) #''Our Friends, The Yetties'' (1971) #''Dorset Is Beautiful'' (1972) #''All at Sea'' (1973) #''Up in Arms'' (1974) #''Let's Have A Party'' (1975) #''The World of the Yetties'' (1975) #'' The Yetties of Yetminster'' (1975) #''The World of The Yetties'' (1975) (compilation LP) #''The Village Band'' (1976) #''Upmarket'' (1977) #''Dorset Style'' (1978) #''Focus on The Yetties'' (1978) (compilation LP) #''In Concert'' (1979) #''A Little Bit of Dorset'' (1981) #''A Proper Job'' (1981) #''Folk N Brass'' (1982) #''On the Fiddle'' (1982) #''Cider 'n' Song'' (1983) #''The Banks of Newfoundland'' (1984) #''The Sound of Cricket'' (1984) #''The Musical Heritage of Thomas Hardy'' (single cassette) (1985) #''The Yetties'' (1986) #''The Musical Heritage of Thomas Hardy'' (double LP) (1988) #''Play it Again'' (1989) #''Singing All The Way'' (1989) #''Out in the Green Fields'' (1990) #''The Fiddler Knows'' (1990) #''Looking for the Sunshine'' (1991) #''Come to the Yetties' Barn Dance'' (1992) #''Dorset, My Dorset'' (1993) #''Singalong Party 'Cigarettes & Whisky & Wild Wild Singing (1995) #''Top of the Crops'' (1995) #''Folk Music of England'' (1997) #''In Praise of Dorset'' (1997) #''Wild Mountain Thyme'' (1999) #''Musical Allsorts'' (2000) #''Rolling Home To England'' (2001) #''Messing About on the River'' (2003) #''Rambleaway'' (2005)

References

External links

The Yetties' Official websiteScrumpy and Western website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yetties, The English folk musical groups English folk musicians Scrumpy and Western People from Yetminster