A happy band

Matthew II and SS Great Britain
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

We had the best turn-out for a while at the Dragon Folk Club last week, and that included Gordon, a new face for the club, and a very welcome one who we hope to see again.

Colin, MC as usual, started off the session with Stan Rogers' The Mary Ellen Carter.

Gordon's debut song at the club was Old Zeb (Larry Kaplan). Kaplan says that the song is about Zebulon Northrup Tilton who was born in 1867, and died in 1952 at the age of eighty-five. He lived long enough to see the coasting schooner trade all but disappear. This was the first of six songs sung during the evening that were new to the Dragon database (though not necessarily new to the club) - I'll simply mark the rest with an asterisk (*).

Denny kept to the watery theme with Row on (roud 2084 - Tune: Tim Laycock). Also keeping to that theme was Paul with Wee pot stove (Harry Robertson), although taking after Nic Jones, Paul sang "Little pot stove".

With the 80th anniversary of the landings just past, Simon found another theme of his own, singing D-Day dodgers (roud 10499 - Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn).

Rob sang a song sometimes sung by Steve: Just as the tide was flowing (roud 1105), followed swiftly by Steve singing a song sometimes sung by Rob: Rio Grande (roud 317). We're not territorial here when it comes to songs.

Bob gave us Blues stay away from me (Alton Delmore, Henry B Glover, Rabon Delmore, Wayne Raney), followed by Sue finishing the first rotation with Soon may the wellerman come, which contrary to popular belief is not a shanty (a working song), but a forebitter (a ballad sung by seamen while off duty). Nevertheless, Nathan Evans' recording of the song published on social media during the pandemic triggered a revival in shanty signing, which can't be a bad thing.

There were two songs sung during the evening which are not available on YouTube as far as I can tell, and therefore not in the playlist linked from "a selection" below. The first was Colin's singing of Chris Sugden's The Pharmacist (*), a parody of Farmer's boy (roud 408, laws Q30), sung by Sugden and Dick Nudds as The Kipper Family. The second song not on the playlist was sung by Rob, and written by his late friend Pete MacGregor: Modern banker (*).

As is customary, I will mention all of the songs sung by newcomer Gordon. His second song was Singing in the May (Mike O'Connor *) - a little late, but we will forgive him. Next he put on his one-man-band contraption (yes, really) and sang Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's Me an Bobby McGee.

Unstrapped, Gordon gave us Joe Hill (Alfred Hayes, Earl Robinson), one of the songs in a set he is developing about rights that have been gained and could easily be lost.

The songs not so far mentioned which are new to the Dragon database were:

• Rob - Waiting for a train (Rob Winder *), not to be confused with the song of the same title which is roud 699, laws H2 and was written by Jimmie Rodgers
• Denny - Shift and spin (Ewan McVicar *)

It fell to Sue to close the evening with Love of the common people (John Hurley, Ronnie Wilkins).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 9 of whom 9 performed)