DFC welcomes newcomers

Cooper and Toller (Vicky and Richard)

Thank you to all who attended last week's session, especially to Richard T and Vicky (Cooper and Toller) who paid their first visit to the club. Sorry that by the one song per person per round rule, we dragged you through most of your repertoire! We hope to see you again, and maybe by having more people at a future session we can be a little more lenient.

With Colin MCing, Derek opened the evening, referring to the recent death of Chris Roach of the Pill Whalers he sang the first song he heard Chris sing. Apparently Chris looked worried as he noticed Derek singing along loudly with the first line but was fine after the second when he realised they were singing the same, less well known version of the song. That song was Bill Westaway's version of Widecombe Fair. Derek challenged me to find a recording of Bill Westaway singing it, and since the Topic recordings on YouTube have been blocked in the UK (not removed as I first thought), I drew a blank there but lo, Smithsonian Folkways comes to the rescue.

Mike gave us The Worst Old Ship. It's often tempting with shanties to link recordings from the video game Assassin's Creed because they are easily available and sometimes quite good, but I usually manage to find another source, as here.

Phil took us across the pond with Woody Guthrie's Philadelphia Lawyer before it was time for Richard T and Vicky's first stint. They started with The Leaves Of Life (Roud 127) and added Six Jovial Welshmen (Roud 283).

I drew a blank on YouTube with Colin's first song of the evening but found a recording of Needlecases elsewhere.

Simon took us to Newfoundland with We'll Rant And We'll Roar (Roud 687).

It's customary to mention all the songs of newcomers, so here goes for the rest of Richard T and Vicky's baptism of fire: The Gentleman Soldier (Roud 178), Bold General Wolfe (Roud 961, Laws A1), William Taylor (Roud 158, Laws N11) - it's always a treat to be able to link to a video of the very people performing, Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy (Roud 165), The Brisk Lad (Roud 1667), Devil And The Farmer's Wife (Roud 160, Child 278), Lady Margaret And Sweet William (Roud 253, Child 74) and Once I Had A Sweetheart (Roud 170). The best news is that they enjoyed their visit to our little club and before Vicky left she asked the tantalising question of whether clog dancing would be allowed on the parquet floor of the bar. Well Vicky, landlord Chris, he says "Yes"! She also said that Richard's wife specialises in French Canadian step dancing, so maybe we will get to meet her too at some point.

The penultimate song of the evening was from Colin and was Steve Knightley's Man Of War and Colin asked Simon to finish us off, which he did after receiving some help from Derek, with The Rout Of The Blues (Roud 21098).

Next week there is no official theme that I know of but you can bring your own if you think of something appropriate. I usually say you may with to sing, play or just listen, but to that I should now add "or dance". I won't be around next week so your excellent deputy scribe will hold the fort on the blog, so you can look forward to a much more interesting and well composed report.

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

(Number of people present - 7, of whom 7 performed)