Between New Year and Burns

Anarchist trial defendants Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left)
and Nicola Sacco

Last Friday's session at The Bridge saw an increase of 50% in the number of singers after the previous week. Let's hope this starts a trend. Come and join us this week (21st January) with an informal Scottish theme for Burns' Night. Don't worry if you can't match the theme; everyone is welcome to sing whatever they fancy as long as it's acoustic (tunes, poems, stories, monologues, jokes... are also welcome).

Back to last week, Colin was MC as usual and started off the evening with Coal Hole Cavalry written by Ted Edwards who was brought up in the coal mining community of Wigan. He used to lie in bed as a small child and listen to all these early morning sounds around him, then imagine the miners in clogs as a cavalry charge, off to remove the Indians who'd taken over the mine during the night.

Mike was still singing of the new year with Richard Thompson's We Sing Hallelujah. Meanwhile Simon was prematurely Scottish, singing Geordie (roud 90, child 209).

Colin pondered whether he had recently sung Two Good Arms (Charlie King), and having established that he probably hadn't, proceeded to do so. King wrote the song in 1977, for the 50th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti (see photo).

Mike was still marking the new year with The Happy Man (roud 1230), a Morris Stick Dance and Song collected in Adderbury, Oxfordshire.

Colin's next song, written by Stan Kelly and Eric Winter, Come-All-Ye And Go-Back-Again is a parody of a multitude of folk songs. Kelly wrote: 'The line "Come all you gallant mariners/ shopwalkers/ computer engineers..." or what-have-youse is folk song's commonest curtain raiser. Its only real purpose is to get the audience quiet before you begin to unfold the story. One night, I found I had to sing three verses of throw-away lines before I could get hush and, when I mentioned this to Eric Winter on one occasion, it set us thinking that there must be somewhere a prototypical martyr ballad consisting of all the best introductory and closing lines. Together, Eric and I produced this masterpiece, this do-it-yourself song kit that needs only the name of your favourite hero to be inserted at strategic places.' It's worth noting that Stan Kelly-Bootle to give him his full name was a computer scientist having achieved the first postgraduate degree in computer science in 1954, from the University of Cambridge.

Mike noted that Dave Goulder's The January Man had been sung by Simon the week before in his absence, and sung it anyway "because it's the only time of year I sing it". Colin couldn't recall Simon having sung The Gentleman Soldier (roud 178) before, but he certainly had, here at least, but no doubt a few other times.

Colin gave us Sean Bhean-Bhocht which is a traditional Irish song from the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and dating in particular to the lead up to a French expedition to Bantry Bay, that ultimately failed to get ashore in 1796. Let's also have a listen to it in Gaelic: An tSeanbhean Bhocht. Wikipedia tells us that the title literally means "poor old woman" and was used as a personification of Ireland in the 18th century.

I think Mike meant his singing of The Oak and the Ash (roud 1367, laws K43B) to pre-empt Burns' Night, but I couldn't find a reference to anything I could recognise as it on robertburns.org. Mike sang it as "...in the West Country"; I couldn't find a recording with that wording so, since we had been talking about various versions, I linked something which seems to me at least more obscure.

When Simon sang Tom of Bedlam (roud V16366; tune Dave Moran, Nic Jones) there was no expectation that it would be the last song of the evening. However, after Mike left the room, we moved into chat mode which carried on for the rest of the evening so this was as it turned out, the finishing off song.

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

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

Not quite the end of war

Bristol Remembrance Sunday parade 2019
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's session had no theme and in fact it was a bit short, not just because we were thin on the ground but because everyone present seemed to have a reason for wanting to leave early, so our normal interval time of 10pm was unusually our end time. Nevertheless, we got through 16 songs, which wasn't bad going.

Colin kicked us off with Hard Times Of Old England (Roud 1206). There was a debate between Colin and Mike as to whether it was made famous by Steeleye Span (1975) or by The Young Tradition, who would certainly have been earlier since they split up in 1969, but I haven't been able to find confirmation that they recorded the song. I've stayed above that discussion by going with the Copper Family (who originally recorded it in 1955). Here's another recording that just predates 1975: The Etchingham Steam Band with the unmistakable voice of Shirley Collins.

Derek's version of The Blantyre Explosion (Roud 1014) puts it at a timely 11 November but he indicated it had always puzzled him because the actual disaster was on 22 October 1877. He assumed that November helped the rhyme.

When Simon sang Graham Moore's Tom Paine's Bones. Derek, a recently retired maths teacher, wondered whether he should have asked for it to be rewritten as John Napier's Bones.

Mike, for reasons known only to himself decided to continue the previous week's war (remembrance) theme through most of the evening, starting with a medley of I Don't Want To Join The Army (Roud 10263) and When This Lousy War Is Over (tune by Charles Crozat Converse).

Derek harked back even further to our Bonfire Night theme of two weeks ago singing what I discovered back in 2016 was the Nottinghamshire / Derbyshire version of a Guy Fawkes night rhyme: "All the little angels are dressed in white".

Simon finally gave in to the war theme with The Gentleman Soldier (Roud 178).

Unusually these days, Mike got to finish off the evening and in doing so set me a challenge to find a recording the exact version of All The Good Times (word by Bob Pegg) that he sang. I wonder whether I managed it? The clues he gave were that it was someone who sang regularly at The Lamb in Iron Acton (the second venue in this club's long history and the first which Mike attended) but he was not a member, which presumably made him a well-known performer. He also said it was the same person from whom he learned the song he sang on the previous rotation: Peter's Private Army (Martin Graebe). So, my guess is Johnny Collins (linked above).Am I right?

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

(Number of people present - 4, of whom 4 performed)

DFC welcomes newcomers

Cooper and Toller (Vicky and Richard)

Thank you to all who attended last week's session, especially to Richard T and Vicky (Cooper and Toller) who paid their first visit to the club. Sorry that by the one song per person per round rule, we dragged you through most of your repertoire! We hope to see you again, and maybe by having more people at a future session we can be a little more lenient.

With Colin MCing, Derek opened the evening, referring to the recent death of Chris Roach of the Pill Whalers he sang the first song he heard Chris sing. Apparently Chris looked worried as he noticed Derek singing along loudly with the first line but was fine after the second when he realised they were singing the same, less well known version of the song. That song was Bill Westaway's version of Widecombe Fair. Derek challenged me to find a recording of Bill Westaway singing it, and since the Topic recordings on YouTube have been blocked in the UK (not removed as I first thought), I drew a blank there but lo, Smithsonian Folkways comes to the rescue.