St Patrick's Day 2019

The Giant's Causeway, County Antrim
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's St Patrick's Day session saw a wide variety of songs with more or less connection to Ireland. This Friday there will be no theme so we'll look forward to at least as wide a variety.

Last Friday Colin as MC started off well on theme with Tom Lewis' St Patrick's Song.

Mike told us that Simon's Paddy Lay Back (Roud 653) was associated with Liverpool. There is a long quote from Stan Hugill on the subject of the song here. Mike's own first song was Red Haired Mary (Sean McCarthy).

Derek tried, for the first few rounds anyway, to pick songs which actually mentioned St Patrick. His first contribution was How Caesar Was Driven From Ireland (Dominic Behan).

For the love of women

Last week's session had no official theme but Derek said that he had created one for himself and asked us to guess what it was. No one quite got it but he admitted in the end it was for International Women's Day, which it was. More specifically, all his songs for the evening were sung from the point of view of a woman. I'll mention all of Derek's songs but I'll try to extract the female themes from the songs of our other singers too.

First of all, a reminder that this week's session will have a St Patrick's Day theme. I'll leave it up to you to decide what that can mean for you since there is quite a lot of scope.

MC Colin started us off with George Papavgeris' Friends Like These.

St David's Day 2019

Last week's session was on St David's Day so that was our theme. Unfortunately we were still at rock bottom for attendance. We manage to have good sessions but it would be a lot more pleasure if you were with us to add your contributions and to enjoy the banter.

Colin ably MCed as usual and introduced the theme with Welsh History 101 by Heather Rose Jones.

Derek's first contribution may seem a little negative about those from across the Wye but in fact he has plenty of historical justification for singing Taffy Was A Welshman (Roud 19237) because the first verse appeared in something like its current form in Nancy Cock's Pretty Song Book, printed in London in about 1780.

Short but I hope sweet

Frontispiece depicting Juvenal and Persius,
from a volume translated
by John Dryden in 1711

It's a really short report of last week's session I'm afraid due to lack of time but first of all, please remember that this Friday's session will be our theme for St David's Day, so it's mainly Welsh but remember that he is also patron of poets and vegetarians, Pembrokshire and Naas in County Kildare, Ireland.

Colin started us off with The Bos'n The Gunner And Me (Francis Barron, Henry Trotere).

Simon spent the evening singing songs he had left over from Valentine's Day the week before, starting with No Sir No (Roud 146). Inspired by the line "If my hand should slip a little further" from the previous song, classicist Derek told the story of a young lady who had studied Juvenal's Satires  and had always wanted to know the meaning of an obscure Latin word used when one character's hand was slipped up the clothing of another character. She found the biggest and best Latin dictionary in the University library, and found that the word was translated... into its Greek equivalent. Now keen to get to the bottom of the mystery, she found the biggest and best Greek dictionary, where the Greek word was translated... back into the Latin! Derek sang Sullivan's John (Pecker Dunne).

Valentine's Day - 2019

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Valentine's Day session brought out many tales of love and lust as well as a couple of unrelated but timely anniversaries.

Before I get started with the report we have some parish announcements since we are coming to peak theme season. All of the following themes are optional; you are always welcome to come along and perform anything you wish, or indeed take your place as an audience member, but if you can match the theme with one or two songs, stories or any other type of acoustic performance then so much the better. Where no theme is given for a particular Friday night it doesn't mean we don't meet, we almost always do, it's just that there is no specific theme planned, so come along with your own theme or none as you wish.

Digging deep

William Keating being recorded in the Pottsville Public Library
(Photograph from the George Korson Collection,
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)

After a Friday where snow stopped play for the players of the Dragon Folk Club, we were back at the folk face again last week though somewhat depleted in numbers.

Colin, the MC, started the session off with Midnight Special (Roud 6364), a song made famous by Lead Belly. There followed Simon's opener which was King Of Rome (Dave Sudbury).

Derek pointed out that I had incorrectly linked in a recent report to Ewan MacColl's Jamie Foyers rather than the traditional Jamie Foyers (Roud 1941). Apparently in an attempt to annoy me, this week Derek sang the MacColl version but I remain cool. The traditional song is set during the Peninsular War of 1807-1814, whereas MacColl's song, based on the original, is set during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.

Burns' Night 2019

Broadside ballad entitled
'A Huy and Cry After Sir John Barlycorn'
by Alexander Pennecuik, 1725

Last week's Burns' Night session led to the singing of many Scottish or Scottish-related songs, and some Burns could even, however debatably, hang his name on. This Friday there doesn't seem to be an official theme though the start of the rugby internationals may give inspiration to some.

Also last week, we enjoyed the company of first time visitors Stuart and Pete, regulars I believe at FAF (Folk Around Fishponds) who mostly performed together, some well-knows songs, and some self-penned.

Colin, our regular MC, started the evening off with Captain Beaky's take on Scottish Tradition, The Haggis Season (Jeremy Lloyd, Jim Parker).

Stuart and Pete were reasonably unprepared for our theme and started off their contribution with the surprisingly old The Cat Came Back written by Harry S Miller, which was published in 1893. Colin persuaded them, as is the tradition with duos, to sing two songs per round, at least in the first part of the evening. Their second was Ukelele Man, telling, in the form of Jerry Reed's Guitar Man, of Pete's challenge of finding places to play his instrument.