May there be more

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

We had a fun Dragon Folk Club session last week. There was no official theme but a few emerged. This Friday again there will no theme, but bring you own if you like. Anything goes as long as it's acoustic.

I'm running out of time to get this report out when I like to do so it will be brief this week.

Colin as MC started us off with the Padstow May song (roud 305). Yes Colin adopted May as his theme for most of the evening.

For the first few rounds Simon had a personal theme of the Eurovision Song contest, singing some entries from the 60s and 70s and starting with Dana's winner for Ireland in 1970 All kinds of everything (Derry Lindsay, Jackie Smith).

Steve came in with Just as the tide was flowing (roud 1105).

There were two songs sung which aren't available on YouTube and therefore aren't in the playlist linked from "a selection" below:

• Colin - The maypole - Apparently a Norwegian song ("Gay is the maypole...")
• Steve - When Adam was first created (roud 728)

Simon finished the evening with The L&N don't stop here anymore (Jean Ritchie).

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

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

Seek and ye shall find

Judith Durham in 1970

OK, so that went well didn't it. With Colin away last week I did a bit of extra publicity and... Geoff and Simon ended up serenading each other for the evening. Seriously, we had a pretty good do, with plenty of singing and a bit of chat thrown in.

Since Geoff arrived just before Simon he was called to sing first. He sang Good Hearted Woman (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson) which he said was written during a card game, inspired by Tina Turner and the abuse she suffered while married to Ike.

Both Geoff and Simon sang songs which had been recorded by The Seekers to mark the death of original lead singer Judith Durham. Geoff sang Bush girl (words by Henry Lawson) and Simon sang Morningtown ride (Malvina Reynolds).

Simon marked Colin's absence by singing a song from his repertoire: Cousin Jack (Steve Knightley).

There was a brief conversation about songs which while good aren't very nice, usually it seems in terms of misogyny. Note that we don't avoid songs which may cause offence, particularly when those songs are historical artefacts telling of past attitudes. There followed a few of these, possibly including:

• Geoff - Step it out Mary (Sean McCarthy)
• Simon - Laird of the dainty Dounby (roud 864)
• Geoff - As I roved out (roud 277, laws O17)
• Simon - No Sir no (roud 146)

Simon closed the evening with Jean Ritchie's The L&N don't stop here anymore.

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

(Number of people present - 2 of whom 2 performed)

Jackanory - I'll tell you a story

(Photo: Luca Barcellona)

We started last week's session with good news from Mike that he had had his operation and was "comfortable". We wish him a speedy recovery and an early return to the fold in good health and excellent voice.

We may have been a man down but the four of us who were left kept the singing going. Colin in particular, MC as usual, started the ball rolling with Eight Bells (Roud 13268). Still on the sea, Simon took us Sailing To Philadelphia with Mark Knopfler. From the sea we followed Geoff onto the rails with Roger Miller's King Of The Road.

Derek decided to pick up a theme from a couple of weeks before when he was not present, singing children's songs:

The Seven Seas

Kaskelot in Bristol (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's session got off to a slow start. Parking was unusually busy outside The Bridge Inn, so I wasn't early but was only the third to arrive. We had a pleasant chat and I think were about to decide whether to stay or go when Steve C arrived just on cue. At a grand total of four we were quorate and after some more procrastination we got the evening going.

Colin was MC and he started us off with So Long It's Been Good To Know You (Woody Guthrie, Roud 15161). With no theme we didn't really know what was coming next and despite being small in number we managed to come up with quite an eclectic mix of music for the evening. Some songs were intentionally aimed at a May theme and others accidentally hit that spot. Nevertheless, our official May themed session will be this week (Friday 5 May).

Trains and mines

The Trimdon Grange rescue(photo by she_who_must - Flickr)

Last week's session had no official theme but that didn't last long. As has become usual, Colin was MC and he asked Derek to start us off.

Derek alluded to 16 February 1882, the date of the Trimdon Grange colliery disaster before singing the song about it, written by Tommy Armstrong: Trimdon Grange Explosion (Roud 3189). This led us straight into a theme of mining which Mike followed with Morley Main (Keith Marsden) about the 1872 disaster there.

Colin claimed a tenuous connection with The Fireman's Growl (FW Skerrett); at least a railway fireman worked with coal. This allowed Simon to follow on with The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore (Jean Ritchie) which deals with both railways and mines.

June, evacuation, invasion and remembering Jean Ritchie

British troops evacuating Dunkirk's beaches

It was good to have two young and apparently enthusiastic visitors even though they didn't perform. Roger told us later they were army cadets. Colin took up his now customary role as MC and asked Derek to start us off.

Derek made his theme June, this being the first DFC session of the month. His first was The Three O'Donnells ("As I roved out one morning, was in the month of June"). Mike followed up with Thousands or More (Roud 1220).

Simon, having noticed that Jean Ritchie died earlier in the week, sang his version of her The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore, based on the singing of Michelle Shocked.

Colin noted that it was the 75th anniversary of the end of Operation Dynamo, which saw a flotilla of "little ships" evacuate British and French soldiers from Dunkirk. To mark the occasion he put the poem, The Little Boats Of England to music.

Fine singing this week - come back soon

Jean Ritchie

Apart from most of the usual familiar faces we were very pleased to welcome three new ones this week: Matt, Nonny, and Arian, who proved excellent performers, both with their harmony singing and individually. They have only recently started singing together and this was their first outing. I hope they make it the first of many to The Dragon Folk Club and that it might even become a habit.

Simon started off by pointing out that Monday 8th December is Jean Ritchie's 92nd birthday and singing her song, The L&N don't stop here anymore. Phil continued the railway theme with The runaway train (Robert E Massey, Harry Warren, Carson Robison) and George Allen (the dying engineer).

Matt, Nonny and Arian so far have only three songs together and they quickly got through those. I'm sure Mike would have appreciated their singing of Rolling down to old Maui (Roud 2005). Unfortunately he had just slipped out to calm down his dog. The second song from the trio was My lady's coach (probably Sabine Baring-Gould). The third and final song from their early repertoire was The deserter (Roud 493).

Ouch!

The Lambton Worm

The main story at this week's session was the death this week of our good friend, banjo player and singer, Betty. Her funeral will be on 28 October 2014 at 12 noon at Westerleigh Crematorium.

Another important announcement was that two recent sessions: Harvest and the celebration of the life of Pat Hyett had between them raised £110 for St Peter's Hospice. Thanks go to everyone who attended those sessions and contributed to that fine total.

We were pleased to see a large number of visitors, some of whom have been recently, some new faces, and one long absent friend of Maggie's who has promised to come again.

Seventh of March-ing on to war

Mervyn Penny, the founder
of Swindon's White Horse Folk Club,
who died recently at the age of 90

Before we started the session this week there was much reminiscing by Derek, Mike and Maggie S about the traditional singer, Fred Jordan. Derek in particular remembered a story about him being taken to an art gallery to see works by Constable and Stubbs, showing rural scenes and livestock. Fred took to complaining about the accuracy of the paintings: "that cart will tip over" or "I wouldn't buy that horse". After a short while he had a crowd of people round him lapping up his every word. Soon the word got round that he was an art critic and when he left he was given an appropriately respectful send-off.

We were joined this week by Rose, who we hadn't seen at the club for a while, and a non-singing visitor, Bob.

There was no official theme to the session this week but Derek explained he had searched for "March" to remind himself of what he might sing of relevance to the new month. The issue was that it threw up a lot of songs about marching, so that ambiguous search became the basis for his song selection.