From Pook's Hill to the Hills of Shiloh

View from Cleeve Hill,
the highest in the Cotswolds
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had no theme and the offerings were as eclectic as you would expect and hope for. It was good to see Stuart and Carrie return and they may almost now be turning into regulars, which is great.

This Friday's session will again have no official theme, but after my slightly premature suggestion last week, this Sunday really is Mothering Sunday, so songs about Mums or the Mother Church may be appropriate.

I have an apology to make to Stuart, although he seemed amused so maybe it's not so bad. Three weeks ago I was not present, so it was more difficult to check my facts, and I credited Bryson City not incorrectly to Daniel Babin, but in fact Stuart sang Bryson City Blues (*), the only song so far that he has written himself (no link to a video I'm afraid).

That asterisk indicating a song new to the Dragon database comes out immediately for the song with which Stuart and Carrie started the evening: Oak, ash and thorn (*) with words from the poem "A Tree Song" in Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and music by kiplingologist Peter Bellamy.

The same duo continued with The Beatles' Norwegian wood (John Lennon, Paul McCartney).

Colin provided the main challenge of the evening for your scribe. The Labourers' Union is the one song I didn't find on YouTube and therefore the only one not included in the playlist linked from "a selection" below.

Colin had reported the week before on the health of our friend Tom Mossman, so Simon thought to bring out Tom's own Lasso the Moon, written in consultation with our late friend Ray Croll.

Denny, having sung herself out of Irish songs at the previous week's St Patrick's Day session, had realised she knew at least one more and therefore gave us The rose of Tralee (* roud 1978) which we can credit either to English writer Edward Mordaunt Spencer (words) and English composer Charles William Glover (music), or to William Pembroke Mulchinock, depending on which story we believe.

Paul brought the first rotation to an end with Somewhere to begin (* T R Ritchie).

Stuart and Carrie introduced us to The Hills of Shiloh (* Shel Silverstein, Jim Friedman), introduced to them by Martin Simpson's version, who in turn acquired it from his collaboration with June Tabor. They also made the "additions to the database" list for the week with Sandy Denny's Who knows where the time goes (*).

Colin also entered the database with Ewan MacColl's The Trafford Road Ballad (*) which was written in 1948 for "Landscape With Chimneys", a play dealing with life in Salford. It is told from the perspective of a WWII veteran who expresses his disdain for needless warfare and death. The melody is based on the 1870's Irish ballad, "Spancil Hill".

Carrie announced that she was singing 10,000 miles (*) from the repertoire of Mary Chapin Carpenter. This is an alternative name for Fare thee well (roud 422).

And so it was also Carrie who gave us our last "new" song of the evening with Stevie Nicks' Dreams (*) and a fine performance it was too. It wasn't the first song of the evening to have everyone singing along.

The final song of the evening came from Stuart and Carrie with Dink's song. Stuart told how John Lomax, on his way to collect and record songs near Huston when, passing over a bridge on the Brazos River he heard a black woman singing a song while washing her husband's clothes in a tent camp of migratory levee-builders. He was so impressed that he stopped and recorded her. Her name was Dink. He decided to come back and hear more songs from her another day, but on his return she had already died.

Cyril Tawney, while serving in the Royal Navy aboard the HMS Indefatigable, found the song in the Lomaxes' book American Ballads and Folk Songs. He was struck by the first verse, and incorporated it into the second verse of his song about the navy, The Grey Funnel Line.

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

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

How to keep warm

(AI image from Stable Diffusion)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was enjoyable not least for some rarer songs being sung. Five singers met and managed not to freeze too hard by singing some songs of warmer climes and warmer times. You can hear all of those songs by following the "a selection" link below to a YouTube playlist.

Slightly bizarrely, Colin as MC started us off with The last shanty (Tom Lewis) and keeping to a maritime theme Simon, inspired by Rob's singing of The tow-rope girls on his last visit,which we remember is by Cicely Fox Smith and not by Tom Lewis at all, gave us Wave over wave (Jim Payne) to the same tune. Rob himself kept it nautical with The Greenland whale fishery (roud 347, laws K21), the first song of the evening totally new to the Dragon database.

We hadn't finished with the sea yet with Paul singing Roll Alabama Roll (roud 4710) and Denny selecting Bye-bye my Roseanna (roud 12380).

Colin's singing of The Roman gladiator (Bruce Campbell) recalled our friend Mike Starkey who we haven't seen for some time. Bruce Campbell, a Groundsman at Wethered's Brewery in Marlow, wrote the song around 1940.

Likewise, Simon's singing of Lasso the moon (Tom Mossman) reminded us of Tom of whom we receive regular reports, but who has not been able to join us for a long time. The song was written as a result of conversations between Tom and our late friend Ray Croll.

Another new song to the database was Mississippi summer (Si Kahn) sung by Rob, who also introduced another "new" song (definitely not new to the club though another entry in the database), General Taylor (roud 216).

Rob was definitely hot on finding gaps in the database because it was he who contributed I think it's going to rain today (Randy Newman). The final new song though came from Colin with Port of call (Kieran Halpin).

I'll leave you to listen to the rest of the songs from the evening. Suffice to say that the last song was The Holmfirth anthem (roud 1046) given to us by Denny.

This Friday's session (16th February) will be our Valentine's Day theme. Of course we know what St Valentine's Day means to most people, but bear in mind he patron saint of affianced couples, beekeepers, happy marriages, love, mentally ill people, plague, epilepsy, and Lesvos.

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

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

A random selection - almost

Pecker Dunne

Another themeless session last week which I think remained pretty much that way, no major themes emerging through the evening. Tom was a very welcome visitor, ahead of his spotlight set at Chipping Sodbury Folk Night on 1 June.

As usual, Colin was MC, and as often happens he started off the evening, this time with George Papavgeris' As Long As Someone Sings A Song.

Derek continued his ongoing May theme well into the evening, starting with The Verdant Braes Of Skreen (Roud 419).

Geoff challenged me to find the version he sang of his first song. Derek suggested looking up Elizabeth Cronin but I'm afraid I failed, so here is Séamus Ennis' version of As I Roved Out which seems similar enough. Apparently Ennis recorded Cronin's singing, so perhaps this isn't such a surprise.

Danger, men at work

Photo by James Butler

There was no official theme this week, so song subjects were a little all over the place. We initially gathered as nine but when Colin, who MCed, asked Steve G to sing, Steve said he had to leave immediately. It's OK, we hadn't upset him, but it did mean we were down to eight and Steve didn't get to sing this time.

Derek kicked off the evening with The Ballad Of William Bloat by Raymond Calvert and Mike responded with The Deserter/Ratcliff Highway (Roud 493).

No pattern that I can see

Hilaire Belloc

It was another good showing this week although I must admit that I was one of several who left after the interval. I am grateful to someone, Richard I believe, for noting down the songs and tunes from the second half; so, many of them can be found on the "a selection" link at the bottom of this report.

With Colin in charge, Derek started off the evening by announcing the death of Brian Colley and proceeded to sing one from his repertoire: The Old Pubs (Johnny Handle). Sorry if I misheard but I believe Mike said that Brian had picked up one of his (Mike's) songs when he visited a folk club in the North East. On Mike's next visit to the club the organiser begged him to sing the song again because they had heard it too many times sung badly in the intervening months. The song, which Mike sang, was Following The Southern Star.

Richard pointed out that we rarely see John Shaw at the club, so he would sing one of his songs. No, he wasn't going to sing The Christmas Tree in the middle of the year but Hilaire Belloc's The Winged Horse. Lesley followed up with The Saucy Sailor (Roud 531, Laws K38).