Do your research

Beacon at Seaton Carew, Hartlepool

Last week's session was light on people but weighty on songs and on learned chat. I have limited time and one or two promised follow-ups to cover, so please forgive me if I'm a little light on collected recordings again this week.

First an announcement... the Harvest session will be on 8 September. Not only does that mean a harvest theme to as many songs and tunes as possible but also a special raffle. Please bring produce which can be offered as prizes and pockets full of change for the raffle and any random collections that may take place. Proceeds this year will go to Shelter, a charity that Dragon regular, Roger has previously supported with his own musical evenings.

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).

Festival-style sing-a-long

Carson Robison

At the start of the session Maggie wasn't very happy, having sat down on a wet seat (I assume). She had to swap for a dry one, and in the process found a cigarette that someone had dropped on the floor, presumably while picking up their darts from beneath the dart board. Maggie wasn't bold enough to smoke it but, after some examination to check the brand and to eliminate the possibility of obvious "doctoring", Colin smoked it at the interval with no obvious ill effects.

Mike kicked off the session with The hunting priest [Doctor Mack or Tally Ho! the hounds, Sir] (Roud 1861), but he started with the second verse of his version and while he could remember the third was at a total loss for the the first and gave up, restarting with Haul on the bowline (Roud 652).

Difficulties for the report writer

Rollright Stones
(Photo: Angela Barnett)

Short on numbers again this week  but some fine chorus singing. I am trying to do some marketing for the
Dragon Folk Club and I'm sure Mike and Maggie are doing their bit but we just aren't getting the number of people in we would like.

Interestingly Derek mentioned it was the first anniversary of the blog. He wasn't quite right; I started it unilaterally a year ago last week and, having discussed it with Maggie and Mike, it went official a year ago next week. The first official report was for Burns' night last year. Since next week is Burns' night I will treat that as the anniversary.

However, that's not the whole point. The reason I started the blog was that Maggie was a little disappointed at the response (or lack of it) she had been having from the print and word-of-mouth advertising she had been doing. So maybe it is the time of year, or has it been a problem throughout the year? I don't know, that's one for Maggie to decide.

If you have any ideas of how we can encourage more people to join us at sessions please let us know. If there's anything you can do, then please do it. Now down to this weeks report...