The Last Farewell

Roger Whittaker in 1971

At the Dragon Folk Club session last week it was great to welcome visitors Tricia and Tony. Tricia sings and plays the ukulele, though her instrument was conspicuous by its absence, and describes Tony as "an experienced audience".

Colin, as MC, started the proceedings with The good ship Ragamuffin (roud 10466). This is a music hall song written around 1882 by John J Stamford for William J "Billy" Ashcroft. Stamford also wrote McNamara's Band for Ashcroft. This (Ragamuffin) was the first song of the evening new to the Dragon database (usual disclaimer: not necessarily new to the club). There were many new songs for the database on this occasion, so rather than get repetitive I will mark them with an asterisk (*).

Tricia's first song was Race of long ago (*), based on a poem by Cicely Fox Smith called Racing Clippers.

Stan found us Waiting for a train (* roud 699, laws H2, Jimmie Rodgers). Simon gave us King of Rome (Dave Sudbury) before Sue took us to Big Rock Candy Mountain (roud 6696, Harry McClintock) and Bob returned us to the American railroad with Golden Rocket (Hank Snow).

Roger was showboating with Ol' Man River (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II) before Chris sang She's like the swallow (roud 2306) sweetly despite having a frog in her throat.

And so ended the first rotation. We went on to sing an impressive total of 38 songs during the evening. You can hear mostly other people's renditions of all but one of them by following the "a selection" link below. I will however mention a subset of them starting with those sung by newcomer Tricia:

• Green grows the laurel (* roud 279)
• Breaking wind suddenly (* Les Barker)
• The Nightingale (* roud 1093, laws M37)
• Here's a goodbye to you, dear Mabel (* Don Thompson) This is the only song of the evening not present in the linked playlist "a selection"
• Farewell to the Clan Line (* Ron Baxter, Ross Campbell)

Talking of "farewell", Simon noted the recent death of Roger Whittaker to whom he was originally introduced by his parents' record collection. He didn't sing The last farewell (Roger Whittaker, Ron A Webster) in the title of this report, but rather Durham town (Roger Whittaker), complete with the geographical inaccuracy which sees the River Tyne flowing through the city rather than the Wear.

Stan and Bob both sang several songs from the pen or the singing of Hank Williams with the effect of marking his recent hundredth birthday. Among them was Stan's rendition of Jambalaya (* Hank Williams, Moon Mullican).

Other songs sung during the evening included:

• Stan - Take these chains from my heart (* Hy Heath, Fred Rose)
• Sue - Gatherin' rhubarb (* Keith Hopwood, Phil Bush), from the mini-series Soul Music based on the Terry Pratchett novel of the same name
• Bob - Drivin' nails in my coffin (* Jerry Irby)
• Stan - Hawaiian sunset (* Sid Tepper, Roy C Bennett)
• Sue - Make you feel my love (* Bob Dylan)
• Colin - I married my Jenny Wren bride (* Shep Woolley)
• Stan - Poor little fool (* Sharon Sheeley)
• Stan - I'm just a country boy (* Fred Hellerman, Marshall Barer)

Simon finished the evening with a rousing chorus song: When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 9 of whom 8 performed)

Yet another musical miscellany

The Mary Rose in a battle with seven Algerine corsairs
(an engraving by Wenceslas Hollar
who was on the ship at the time)

There was no theme for last week's session so we were free to come up with clusters of songs around various topics.

Colin was the MC and Mike kicked us off with the topical The Twenty Fourth of February (Roud 951) (sorry I couldn't find a recording in English), although he sang "twenty third". Apparently it describes a battle which took place on 29 December 1669 where Captain John Kempthorne on the fifth Mary Rose saved a convoy from attack by seven ships of Algerine pirates. He was knighted for this action.

Pre-Christmas lull and important news

Sheila Stewart

Before I get down to telling you what happened at this week's session there is very important news about next week's. Next Friday, 19 December, will be the club's Christmas party. As usual that means you may decide to bring contributions to a Christmas buffet as well as bringing your Christmas songs and tunes. However you need to be aware that the venue isn't The Bridge but is rather The New Inn at Westerleigh. This isn't yet an announcement of a permanent change to our venue but keep watching this blog for news. In the meantime please tell everyone you know in the folk world that our 19 December Christmas Party will be at this different venue.

With the parish announcement out of the way we can get straight into the session report, as Derek got straight into the session the way he meant to go on.

Dogs and absent friends

The early part of this week's session was marked by some wining from Mike's dog, Indy. Mike was intending to leave at the interval anyway but made an early exit when things got too bad. This also influenced the singing, with several dog-themed songs, including Mike's own opener, Noah's ark shanty (Roud 318).

The first of two Steve's (Steve 1) continued the canine theme with Dido Bendigo (Roud 584). Simon's doggy offering was The smuggler's song (Rudyard Kipling). This last song was one of two sung from the repertoire of our late friend Ray Croll, the other being Buddy can you spare a dime (words: E. Y. "Yip" Harburg; music: Jay Gorney), sung by Roger.