The last buds of May?

Bessie Smith (Photo: Carl Van Vechten)

Last week's session again had no theme but again we managed to squeeze out some May themed songs between us. This week again will have no theme, so any sort of performance will be just fine as long as it's acoustic.

Colin, the MC, started us off by twisting May a little as a name, and singing a song of Sam May, which I have failed to trace. It however inspired Derek to think of using "May" as a name and did a version of Tom Paxton's brief The Ballad Of Spiro Agnew but re-titled The Ballad Of Theresa May.

Mike's first May contribution was Bonny Black Hare (Roud 1656) "On the fouteenth of May...".

Having failed at the first fence the previous week, Simon just about managed Claudy Banks (Roud 266, Laws N40) this week which served to deprive Mike of one of his candidates for the evening.

If you listen to the song on the "selection" link below, I have to admit that in the first half of the evening there were an unusually large number I could not find on YouTube. I did however find Derek's The Red Flag (Roud V45381) sung to the tune which the writer, Jim Connell originally intended, The White Cockade.

Mike pointed out that the end of this month of May marks the fiftieth anniversary of the club and so he sang the old closing song from when the club was at The Lamb, Iron Acton. it is a version of Strike The Bell (Roud 4190) which tells of the landlord striking the bell for last orders and the barmaid Elsie flashing the lights.

Simon sang Cyril Tawney's Sally Free And Easy with guitar accompaniment, something which Mike said Cyril would never have done and may have ridiculed since he always sung it unaccompanied. He told the story of a young band playing the song and describing it as traditional in front of Tawney himself, only to experience Cyril singing it and correctly claiming it as his own later the same evening. This led to discussion of Cyril Tawney's subtle use of guitar which Simon had read on Mudcat as apparently having been influenced by Burl Ives. The mention of whom led to everyone singing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Allie Wrubel, Ray Gilbert), although I have struggled to find the connection.

Colin was surprised to learn that Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out (Roud 18521) was written by Jimmy Cox as long ago as 1923.

Way off the folk topic if not entirely off the may theme, Simon decided to mark Eurovision weekend, inauspicious as it later turned out to be for the United Kingdom, with three past entries: Are You Sure (John Allison, Bob Allison) performed by The Allisons for the United Kingdom in 1961, Puppet On A String (Bill Martin, Phil Coulter) performed by Sandie Shaw in 1967 for the United Kingdom, and All Kinds Of Everything (Derry Lindsay, Jackie Smith) performed by Dana in 1970 for Ireland. But whoa a moment. Is there really no folk connection? What about Phil Coulter, who has been associated with The Dubliners and Andy Irvine among others?

Derek finished off the evening with an excellent opportunity for us all to sing along to The Wild Goose Shanty (Roud 328).

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

(Number of people present - 4, of whom 4 performed)