Dewi Deferred

Saint David (Dewi Sant)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was relatively well attended with eight performers and two audience members. The audience, who said they enjoyed the evening but had to leave early were Paul and Monica; we hope to see you again soon. We were also joined from over the bridge (i.e. having travelled from his home in South Wales) by Barry. I'm not sure whether Barry has been to the DFC before but whether or not, he was very welcome.

It has come to my notice that there is an even going on that may be of interest to our regulars, particularly those who have been coming to the club for a very long time. There is an exhibition at the Yate & District Heritage Centre which runs until the 17 March, entitled The Pubs of Yate and Sodbury. It is notable because the advert for the exhibition on Facebook shows The Lamb Inn at Iron Acton, which was the original venue for the club, being its home for the first seventeen and a half years of its existence.

Back to last week's session, it informally inherited the theme of St David (Dewi Sant in Welsh) from the previous week's abortive event, which just didn't happen because of the snow. Colin was MC and He started off proceedings appropriately with the Bells Of Rhymney, a song first recorded by Pete Seeger, using words written by Welsh poet Idris Davies. The lyrics to the song were drawn from part of Davies' poetic work Gwalia Deserta ("Wasteland of Wales"), which was first published in 1938.

Visitor Barry gave us a good variety of songs through the evening, sometimes unaccompanied, other times accompanying himself on concertina or with his guitar. His first song was John Tams' Who Will Blow The Candle Out Tonight? He later added Punch And Judy Man (John Conolly).

In 2008 Barry heard the news story of Tomos Stringer, a Welsh soldier who was refused a room in a Woking hotel, being told that it was management policy not to accept military personnel. At the time he thought it would make the basis of a song but was not confident of writing it himself, when he realised that the song already existed in the form of Tommy with words by Rudyard Kipling and a tune added by Peter Bellamy.

Simon provided two poems by adopted Welshman, Les Barker, with the additional justification that St David, as well as being patron saint of Wales, is the patron of poets (and vegetarians, but that's a different story). The poems were Have You Got Any News Of The Iceberg?, which would have been particularly appropriate the week before with the wintry weather, and Camouflage Net. This inspired Barry to sing Les' augmented version of Bill Staines' Roseville Fair.

Barry also offered us Leon Rosselson's The Neighbour's Cat (I didn't find a recording on YouTube of just this song, so it isn't at the "selection" link below but you can hear it at the beginning of this longer recording). His final song of the evening was Little Man You've Had A Busy Day (Mabel Wayne, Al Hoffman, Maurice Sigler).

Derek was the first to sing a song partly in Welsh, which I believe was Lord Randall (Roud 10, Child 12). Mike was the other flexible linguist with his usual song partly in what I believe we agreed on a previous occasion was sailors' Welsh, that being Hob Y Deri Dando. Whether by design or chance, Colin presented a sing said to have evolved from Hob Y Deri Dando: Cosher Bailey's Engine. If you can spot the similarity I would love to hear it.

Geoff posed a question, asking who were the first man and woman who (separately) topped the UK music charts. The answer was Shirley Bassey with As I Love You in 1959 and Ricky Valance with Tell Laura I Love Her in 1960. While we're there, it's worth noting that by the time a third Welsh singer had a number one hit (Tom Jones with It's Not Unusual in 1965), Bassey had two under her belt and Valance had scored three. John P declined to sing a Shirley Bassey hit but said that Tell Laura I Love Her was the first "adult" song he had sung and while he hadn't performed it since his voice broke, he made a sterling effort with it and some of us were able to join in.

Of course the evening brought its share of Max Boyce songs: Mike with Duw It's Hard and Colin with Songs And Arias.

Henry arrived sometime around the interval and introduced us to a song by Jammie Sammy (Samantha Sweetland) entitled Pete The Ninja Crab. He also picked up on the Welsh theme and sang a song of his own inspired by an Eddie Cochran hit, which I think may have been Three Steps To Heaven (Eddie Cochran and his brother Bob Cochran).

Finally, Derek sang a song which I guess to be entitled Belle Of Tiger Bay, which brings us right back to Shirley Bassey.

This week's session at Dragon Folk Club will be to mark St Patrick's Day, so we move swiftly from Wales to Ireland and everything Irish and anything else relating to St Patrick or not as the case may be. See you there!

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

(Number of people present - 10, of whom 8 performed)