Vistors welcome

Bob Watson who died on 31st May

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session saw us able to welcome two new first time visitors: Richard and Anne are from the Stroud area and they brought some excellent songs, singing and playing to our evening as well as their two very well behaved canine companions. We hope they return soon. We really have had some great visitors recently and long may it continue. Perhaps some of them will even become regular?

This Friday there will be no official theme once again though you are welcome to bring your own or make one up as you go along. A bit of an early warning - next week's report is likely to be brief, probably without a YouTube playlist. Normal service should be resumed the following week.

Back to last week's session, Colin, MC as usual, opened the account in memory of the recently deceased Bob Watson by singing Bob's Shantyman.

Richard and Anne opened their Dragon account with No telling (* Linda Thompson) and Harvest moon (* Neil Young).

Bob's first song was So much trouble (* Brownie McGhee) and Sue's was Beyond the sea (Charles Trenet, Albert Lasry, Jack Lawrence). The latter being an English language version of Charles Ternet's La Mer.

Simon marked the 81st anniversary of the Normandy landings and completed the first rotation with D-Day Dodgers (Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn).

In the second rotation Anne sang Cold Missouri Waters (* James Keelaghan) and Richard gave us his own version (*# Richard Cox) of Carrickfergus (roud 17556). The popular version of the song is attributed to Dominic Behan who said he learned the third verse from Peter O'Toole. Richard's version tells of a man who would like to go abroad for his holiday, but his wife wants to stay in Ireland.

Colin debuted a song which he heard from the singing of friend of the club, Terry Cock, that being What happened to the ponies (Jim Moreland). This is the first time I've been able to find a recording of the song to add to the playlist linked from "a selection" below.

Continuing the tradition of mentioning all songs from newcomers to the club, Anne and Richard sang Stan Rogers' Lock-keeper, and Richard went solo on his own version (*# Richard Cox) of Spencer the Rover (roud 1115) in which Spencer is dissatisfied with the service being provided by the council in Stroud. He tries moving to Wales, but finally returns.

On the next rotation Richard and Anne gave us Graham Nash's Wasted on the way (*), and Richard sang The man who wrote the songs (*) which was written by our very own Derek Brinkley who had paid us a long awaited visit only the week before.

Returning to singing solo, Anne performed In search of angels (* Calum McDonald, Rory McDonald) from the band Runrig, of who she was clearly a fan having attended their last gig in Stirling in 2018.

Richard's last song of the evening was Chris Smither's Origin of species (*).

Sue sang her own song, Recycled teenager (#) and Bob evoked Lynyrd Skynyrd's version of J J Cale's Call me the breeze (*).

Simon finished the session off with Stan Rogers' Northwest passage.

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

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

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and songs not to be found in the playlist linked from "a selection" are marked with a hash (#).

Guy Fawkes, bonfires and camp fires

With fireworks for Guy Fawkes' Night well under way, Gerty kept Derek and Maggie home, no doubt to watch the local display while cowering under a table. Meanwhile there was no such trouble for Indy who kept an eye out for stray bangs but didn't cause too much trouble for Mike.

As is usual at the moment we didn't have an official theme but there was a strong leaning to songs to sing around the campfire with a few contemporary to Guido himself.

Colin arrived first and as MC put himself on to sing The grand old Duke of York (Roud 742). He sang several verses and said he hadn't come across them before; Mike remembered them from his schooldays.

Simon, almost completely off topic, said he had a request (from Colin) the week before at Halloween, so he sang Monster Mash (Bobby Pickett).

Mike's first song was Spencer the rover (Roud 1115) which mentions the fifth of November.

We had twenty five songs, twenty six of which can be heard via the "a selection" link below. Oh, 26 of 25? Mike, noting that the others were singing children's songs, sang I've got sixpence (Roud 1116 - yes, consecutive to Spencer!) and later returned with a snippet of the shanty version, Mop her down (Roud 17004) on a turn when he really sang Martin said to his man (Roud 473). This latter song was one of two later versions we had of political nonsense songs which originated around the time of the gunpowder plot (1605); the other was Benjamin Bowmaneer (Roud 1514) which Simon sang. Mike told us that they were from the time of the Napoleonic Wars with the evidence being that the "flea" was Napoleon in both songs. 

Other songs of note from Mike included his own Children of the train (the recording doesn't use Mike's tune). He also sang the JCB Song (Seamus Moore), not to be confused with the equally wonderful but totally different JCB Song (Luke Concannon).

Colin reminded us of our friend Roger, who we haven't seen for a while by singing Upidee. Known with different words as an American Civil War song, the song used the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Exelsior and was a Harvard college song.

Simon finished off the evening with When I first came to this land (Roud 16813) which was translated by Oscar Brand in 1957 from a Pennsylvania Dutch song.

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

(Number of people present - 3, of whom 3 performed)

Bonfire Night 2019

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Despite Halloween being well out of the way for another year, we were down to a skeleton staff for our Bonfire Night, or more accurately campfire themed session last Friday. Perhaps more will turn out for our Remembrance session this Friday, 8 November when songs, tunes, stories and other performances relating to remembrance, war and anti-war will be particularly welcome though as usual anything goes as long as it's acoustic.

Our MC, Colin started us off with the one Bonfire Night song of the evening, Guy Fawkes (Roud V18439).

In place of a campfire, Simon had us in a dark engine room, huddled round a Wee Pot Stove (Harry Robertson). Mike eschewed fires altogether in his first song, instead opting for a reference to "the fifth of November" in Spencer The Rover (Roud 1115).

Geoff also claimed to miss the theme but we thought he could probably use the campfire to cook the sausages and potatoes from his song Lidl And Aldi (Mickey MacConnell). Mike also wanted it to be known that garden equipment bought from Lidl is too resilient to be made fun of.

More campfires than Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes Night 1776 at Windsor Castle

Last week's session was our Guy Fawkes Night bash with songs and stories encouraged on any subject related to the man, to fire or things you might do round the campfire. This week's (Friday, 10 November) will be the Remembrance session, so any form of performance war-related, anti-war or for remembrance would be excellent. If you can't manage the theme, then anything goes as long as it's acoustic, and if you don't want to perform then you are most welcome to come along for the fun and make us an audience.

Back to last week, Colin was MC and he started off proceedings with Richard Digance's Boy Scout Song.