Transported from Bristol to Australia (and back)

Cootamundra Wattle (Photo: John Jennings)

Well, last week's Dragon Folk Club Session had a slightly more satisfactory turn-out than the previous one. Let's see if we can make a big effort to get a good crowd this Friday for the last in our series of 50th anniversary sessions. We will be two men down, so we really need to make an extra effort. If you can't make it this week then remember that you are welcome any Friday from 8:15pm at The Bridge Inn, Shortwood, Bristol, BS16 9NG. Barring Christmas Day, very deep snow, tempest or a rare double-booking of the room, we will be there. Watch this blog or our Facebook page for such information.

Three into 50 doesn't go

Upton station, Co.Cork (Photo: Ralph Rawlinson)

Oh dear! We're still celebrating the club's 50th anniversary (two more weeks to go) but last week's turn-out was very meagre, not strictly quorate, but we carried on regardless, at least up to a slightly early finish.

Colin, MCing as usual, sang the first of three Woody Guthrie songs of the evening, This Land Is Your Land (Roud 16378). His second Guthrie was Hard Travelin' (Roud 13926). Derek made up the hat-trick with a song that Woody apparently wrote when challenged to sing about the Ladies' Auxiliary. This linked recording appears to be an extended version since printed lyrics usually agree with Derek's rendition that it consists only of a sort of chorus of four lines. Guthrie had in fact earlier sung about the same subject in his song Union Maid (and Pete Seeger finishes this recording off with the original short version).

D-Day 75 - Dragon 50

Commando Memorial, Spean Bridge
(Photo by Simon Meeds)

We're continuing the Dragon Folk Club 50th anniversary celebrations through to the end of June, so please come along and celebrate with us. Everyone is welcome but if you've been at the club any time during its long life you may like to perform something you performed on previous visits. We'd certainly love to hear it.

Last week's session was the second in the series of 50th anniversary events and was time also to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day with a variety of war and anti-war songs, some of which had specific relevance as did MC Colin's first, Shores Of Normandy by folk singer Jim Radford, the youngest known D-Day veteran (aged 15 years and 8 months at the time). The song, sung by Jim not Colin, went onto top the Amazon and iTunes download charts.

Geoff took a random dip in his repertoire and came up with Marty Robbins' Big Iron.

Simon went for a song about the war rather than D-Day with Liz Padgett's Plover Catcher which left the goal open wide for Mike to score with Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn's D-Day Dodgers (Roud 10499), remarking that his father was one of them.

Starting as we mean to go on

Arnold Skolnick's poster for Woodstock

Last Friday's session was the start of our "season" of five sessions marking the fiftieth birthday of the club. Throughout June we really want to push to get some more people coming along to perform and listen: certainly new people but also some who have been past regulars and visitors at the club, maybe even to sing songs and play tunes they played earlier in the clubs history.

We knew one week would be short notice, so we didn't have great hopes for a full house but were pleased to be joined by Tom, a member since about 1981. Let's hope for more people joining us in the remaining weeks. If you intend to come along, please consider leaving a message below so that your intention may inspire others who know you or even those that don't.

MC Colin kicked us off with The Folksinger's Lament, written by David Diamond. Colin wasn't sure which tune to use but it turned out to be the Limerick Rake.

Tom started off his contribution in his usual fine style with John Martyn's May You Never for which he claimed a tenuous connection to the last day of May (more of that later).