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)

Mini themes galore

CSS Alabama

The report has to be a quick one this week before I hand over to the deputy scribe, and I'm afraid there won't be any YouTube links.

Next week's Dragon Folk Club session could be very thin on the ground, so if you are an occasional or lapsed dragon, I would encourage you to make a special effort to come and support the club; the more of us there are, the happier the landlord is.

This week's session was MCed by Richard who started off with The Lark In The Morn.

Mike said his first song was about a place that could be very cold, at which Colin and Derek suggested, almost in unison, Weston-Super-Mare. An amusing suggestion, but not what Mike intended. He rather gave us a sing-a-long favourite that I don't think he's done for a while: Lish Young Buy-A-Broom (Roud 1865) - the intended location being Kirkby Stephen.