Blue, purple and green

Rain at Dungeness (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was unusual for this time of year having no theme. This Friday it will be our Halloween session, which gives quite a wide scope. Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day and is thought to be associated with the Celtic festival Samhain, when ghosts and spirits were believed to be abroad. If in doubt anything a bit spooky will do, and in any case as is always the case with our themes, it's entirely optional and anything goes as long as it's acoustic.

Back to last week, we were pleased to see Paul back and in fine voice after his serious surgical interventions, more of which later in the report. We also saw the return of occasional Dragon, John B without his sloop, but with his drum and harmonica (not at the same time).

Colin started things off with Galtee farmer (roud 9305) and John followed up with Freedom town (Delila Paz, Edgey Pires).

Paul had written a brand new song about his recent operation called Mandibulectomy blues (Paul Welcomme) and Denny gave us Half past eleven square (Cicely Fox Smith), which is about the clock in Armentiéres which remained at that time following the almost complete destruction of the town near the start of the First World War. The title of the poem and song comes from the nickname given by British soldiers to the place where it stood.

Simon finished the first rotation, not as he originally hoped with Jackson by the recently deceased Billy Edd Wheeler and his co-writer, Jerry Leiber, but with Ian "Nobby" Dye's Welsh back quay.

Apart from Paul's brand new song mentioned above there was one other sung during the evening which does not seem to appear on YouTube and is therefore not included in the playlist linked below from "a selection". That song was sung by Colin and is The sea dog, originally a poem in a book called Sea Lanes, edited by Burt Franklin Jenness, and later adapted into a song by Bob Zentz, with later adaptations also contributed by Charlie Ipcar.

As usual there were some songs new to the Dragon database, though some of them may have been sung previously at the club:

• Colin - Peg and awl (roud 4619)
• John - Purple rain (Prince)
• Denny - Evergreen (Barbra Streisand, Paul Williams)
• Colin - Shrimp boats (Paul Mason Howard, Paul Weston)

Simon finished off the evening by inviting everyone present to join in with Blow the man down (roud 2624).

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

(Number of people present - 5 of whom 5 performed)

Presidential Inauguration

The Mayor of Trumpton

A sadly low turn-out again for last week's session but at least we were five in the first half of the evening and there was some interesting back and forth of ad hoc themes. There was no official theme but this Wednesday is Burns' Night, so this Friday's theme (27 January) is all things Scottish or Burns - your presence is required.

The most popular mini-theme last week was the inauguration of President Trump. Some songs were thought appropriate and others were simply modified to fit. Colin was MC.

Steve C started the evening off with Old Shep (Red Foley). It was the song Elvis Presley sang at his first public performance, aged 10 on 3 October 1945 at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.

More June Fun

Tommy Banner and Pete Budd of The Wurzels
performing at the 2011 Wychwood Festival

I arrived slightly late to the session last week and I initially thought that there were only five of us there but in fact Lesley was just outside walking Mike's dog, Indy. So, we were six, which is a workable number for a session but it would have been nice to have had at least a couple more.

Being late I missed Derek's first song which was in honour of Dave Swarbrick who died on 3 June. The song was The Cuckoo's Nest (Roud 1506 , 5407), which naturally Derek sang but Dave had played on the violin. I think this was also the start of talk about bawdy songs.

Mike's first contribution was Blow The Man Down (Roud 2624). Having left early the previous week, Richard probably didn't realise that Derek finished the session with the June-themed The Jug Of Punch (Roud 1808). Not that it really mattered and anyway Richard's was a slightly different version.

Lesley sang Spanish Lady which gave me an opportunity to correct Wikipedia while writing this report. The online encyclopaedia showed the song as Roud 543 when it should have been 542 (incidentally, there is no Roud 543).

Simon had been practicing Alan Bell's Windmills. He still struggled to get started but finally found his stride.

Colin gave us a curve ball with He's Dead But He Won't Lie Down (Will E Haines, Maurice Beresford, Jimmy Harper) which was made famous by Gracie Fields. In fact Colin must have been in a funny mood since he also sang Gather In The Mushrooms from Benny Hill, and Combine Harvester, marking the fortieth anniversary of The Wurzels' appearance in the UK charts (they go to number 1) with the song. I didn't realise until researching this report that Combine Harvester, of course based on Melanie's (Melanie Safka) hit Brand New Key, was written by and was a hit in Ireland (also a number 1) for Brendan Grace. Colin even returned to The Wurzels near the end of the evening with Adge Cutler's Chitterling - a celebration of a West Country delicacy that Colin doesn't even like!

Although we were a small band we were lucky that only Mike gave up and went home before the end, so the circles we followed round were not so much ever decreasing ones as they have been on some recent occasions.

Colin asked Simon to finish up the evening which he did recalling a question on that day's Radio 4 News Quiz about delays in opening a new airport on the island of St Helena. Simon's song was Boney Was A Warrior.

There is no official theme again next week, so let's see if we can get some more bums on seats to sing, play and join in. We really don't bite and you might even enjoy it.

Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 6, of whom 6 performed)