Easter 2025

Sanctuaire de la Sainte-Baume
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

We had a great Easter session at the Dragon Folk Club. We loved welcoming first time visitors John and Howard who call themselves Old Friends, and now they are our friends too.

This Friday the optional theme will be St George's Day (just three days early). Don't worry if you can't follow the theme, but there's plenty of scope to follow it. St George, dragons and England are the obvious ones, but look also to his other patronages which include: agricultural workers, farmers, field workers, soldiers, archers, armourers, equestrians, cavalry, saddle makers, chivalry, peacekeeping missions, skin diseases, lepers and leprosy, syphilis, sheep, shepherds, scouting, Albania, Bulgaria, England, Ethiopia, Greece, Georgia, Portugal, Romania, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Castile and León, Catalonia, Alcoi, Aragon, Genoa, and Rio de Janeiro.

Back to last week, according to blog tradition I will mention all of the songs sung by newcomers John and Howard (Old Friends). Songs which are new to the Dragon database, although they may have been sung at the club before, are marked with an asterisk (*) and songs not in the YouTube playlist liked from "a selection" below are marked with a hash (#).

Colin started off with a proper Easter song: The pace-egging song (roud 614). Simon followed on with just a mention of Easter in The moonshine can (roud 9949).

Old Friends specialise in Simon & Garfunkel songs and as a duo were asked to sing two each round. They opened their account with Leaves that are green (* Paul Simon) and the eponymous Old friends (* Paul Simon).

Paul's first of the evening was the Easter-appropriate Seven virgins (roud 127) and Denny evoked Easter chicks with The chickens in the garden (roud 2552 - James Alan Bland). And so the first rotation was complete.

Colin once again brought us a seasonal offering with Dave Goulder's The Easter Tree.

John and Howard sang Scarborough Fair (roud 12, child 2) and Summertime (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin).

Apart from our visitors, Colin was the only one to add entries to the Dragon database during the session. He first did this with Johnny Cash's Redemption (*), and later with Eggs and bacon (*# roud 377 - collected from Stan Steggles). I didn't find a recording of Eggs and bacon, but I did find the closely related Eggs in her basket (roud 377).

Completing the collection of songs from John and Howard (Old Friends) we have:

• Vincent (Don McLean)
• April come she will (* Paul Simon)
• All I have to do is dream (* Boudleaux Bryant)
• Don't let the old man in (* Toby Keith)
• Detectorists (* Johnny Flynn)
• Man of the world (* Peter Green)

Paul gave us one song that didn't make its way to the playlist: Tracks in the snow (# Steve Thomason).

Denny closed the session with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

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

Nostalgia is what it used to be after all

Leo Maguire
(1903 – 17 December 1985)

As we expected, last week's Dragon Folk Club session was down to a kernel of two singers, but sing they did. You may think a lot of the songs are not folk, but when you get two men of a similar age sat down and singing these things can happen. Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit younger and I can go happily along with the same mix. So, it was quite a sixties and seventies evening, but I hope you will agree it was a good selection, even with a bit of folk and near folk mixed in.

Colin started off the evening with Hotel California (Don Felder, Don Henley, Glenn Frey). Geoff followed on with The Whistling Gypsy (roud 1, child 200), which is obviously traditional but I suspect the version Geoff sang was based on this one copyrighted in the 1950s by Leo Maguire.

Despite there being only two singers they managed to get through several songs (including the two mentioned above) not previously on the Dragon Folk Club song database, so I will list the rest of them:

• Colin - Across the universe (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) 
• Colin - Vincent (Don McLean)
• Colin - Lady Madonna (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)
• Colin - Hey Jude (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)

It was also Colin who finished off the evening fittingly with George Papavgeris' Friends Like These.

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

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

Gala, Bastille and Concertina

The Cotia (Nova Scotia Mine) banner
depicting Jack Elliott and Jock Purdon

Before I get down to the report for last week there are couple of important parish announcements. First, the pub is having a major event of some sort on Friday 7 August, so there will be no Dragon Folk Club session that night. The pub has however offered us the bar on Saturday 8 August if we want it. please let us know if you would be interested in attending a session at The New Inn, Westerleigh on that evening. If there are enough people we will take the pub up on its offer; if however it doesn't look worthwhile we will not.

The other parish announcement is that the session on 31 July will have a special theme, and one we have been discussing since at least April. The theme, possibly inspired by a round on Radio 4's comedy quiz programme I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, is One Song To The Tune Of Another. So if you can sing The Lincolnshire Poacher to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, or Pack Up Your Troubles to the tune of My Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow-wow, then the thirty first is your chance to shine.

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.

Harvest 2014

Pete Shutler of The Yetties

This week was our harvest session with sandwiches provided by Maggie and most present having brought produce for the raffle whose proceeds will go to St Peter's Hospice.

Speaking of the hospice, I will get an early plug in for next week's session (3 October) which will be in memory of Pat (Eades) Hyett who died there recently. Pat, together with her husband Keith, was familiar on the local folk scene and a regular visitor to the Dragon Folk Club. Please come along and bring your friends and family so that we can celebrate the life of our friend Pat in the best way possible. Any money collected will once again be donated to St Peter's Hospice.

The end of May at last!

Ed McCurdy

There was a relatively large non-performing audience again this week, largely due to second-time visitor Joe's entourage, and they were very welcome too, as was Steve who arrived quietly and unannounced, stayed for most of the evening and left in a similar manner - he seemed to enjoy it and I hope we will see him again in the future.

As usual, Mike started off the evening, this time with Carry the News! We Are All Surrounded.

Joe sang three very popular songs, accompanied by Tom on guitar: Don McLean's Vincent, Donovan's Colours, and Paul Simon's The boxer. Tom made Paul Simon into a mini theme by singing American tune. Tom also said he had found a claim on the web that Paul Simon had written Last night I had the strangest dream; he was quickly put right by Derek who correctly attributed the song to Ed McCurdy; Tom sang it anyway.