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).

Tom, who we hadn't seen for a while was very welcome. His first song was No Other Name (Peter Yarrow). He followed this up with one of his own: Lasso The Moon; it's always a pleasure to link to a video of the man himself and even more so when it's a song he wrote. I don't mean this to apply to Tom alone, it's good to find any of our regulars or visitors on the Web.

Kath, who claims to be a little out of practice, seemed to have dragged out another tune from her previous repertoire with Winster Gallop. Phil had learnt a new song: I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago. He confided in me that he learnt it from The Vipers Skiffle Group but I've linked an older version here.

Colin's first song of the evening was Dougie MacLean's Feel So Near. Colin had brought with him his daughter, Imogen, who used to be a Dragon regular. Imogen had in turn brought her flute and entertained us with tunes including Gentle Maiden, Whiskey In The Jar (probably not quite like this but it was after I left for the evening).

Simon brought with him The Good Old Colony Times (Roud 130). Rose was the third person who we hadn't seen for a while. Among others she sang Bessie Smith's version of Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out (Jimmy Cox). Meanwhile, Alan dug into Marriott Edgar's monologues to give us Albert And The Lion.

And so the evening started and it continued in good humour and providing excellent entertainment despite the best attempts of everyone present. It fell to Derek to close the proceedings with South Australia (Roud 325).

Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 15, of which 13 performed)