The working man

It was great last week to see a totally new face at Friday's session. Sam was apparently at a loose end and found us on Facebook, which is what we like to hear. He didn't have anything prepared to sing but it sounds as though there's potential for the future if we haven't scared him off.

Colin as MC started the session off with The Agitator, believed to have been written in 1873 by Henry Taylor. The subject of the song is Joseph Arch, known as the agitator, who founded the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union in 1872. Taylor was a carpenter, who was admitted to the Union because of his previous trade union experience. The song was included in Roy Palmer’s A Ballad History of England.

Colin's theme for the evening appears to have been unions and workers' rights.

Derek sang Rosie Anderson (Roud 2169) having stumbled on The Rambler From Clare (Roud 1531, Laws K38), but not to be defeated, he returned to that song later in the evening.

Geoff told us the tale of the successful Irish greyhound, Master McGrath (Roud 3041) who came to England and won the Waterloo Cup on three occasions: 1868, 1869 and 1871, and was the first greyhound to do so.

Colin continued his theme with Song Of The Leaders (Brian Pearson) and Simon followed a similar feel, if almost 300 years later in subject (The Peasants' Revolt and The Diggers), with Leon Rosselson's World Turned Upside Down.

I always say that we like folk songs and tunes but despite the name of the club any sort of acoustic performance is acceptable, whatever the genre. Geoff took the core interest maybe a little literally, singing Folk Song (Myles Rudge, Ted Dicks) - only joking. Anyway, it's structure of going through the week but with nothing happening on Friday reminded Derek of a song in a similar vein, so he sang Swell My Net Full (Roud 16874).

Geoff was surprised when Derek said that his song Part Of The Union was an American union song. He was in one way right to be since the writing credits are to Richard Hudson, John Ford who are both English and it was the biggest hit for British band, The Strawbs, originally the Strawberry Hill boys from St Mary's Teacher Training College, Strawberry Hill, London. However, the basis for Derek's claim is that the song is clearly derived from Woody Guthrie's song, Union Maid.

With all this talk of unions Derek sang There Was A Rich Man And He Lived In Detroitium. His next song was Divers And Lazarus (Roud 477, Child 56). He asked us what the connection was between these two. The answer is that ...Detroitium is a parody of There Was A Rich Man And He Lived In Jerusalem (Roud 2571) which in turn is a much newer American version of Divers And Lazarus.

Simon sang D'ye Ken John Peel (Roud 1239), at least partly because it would have been the birthday of John Peel, not the huntsman, but the presenter and DJ, born in 1939 who died in 2004. By coincidence the song Colin had decided to follow with was Sydney Carter's George Fox ("fox", get it?) about the founder of the Quakers. Derek however came as close as we get to a matching pair with The Old John Peel (also Roud 1239).

Colin gave us The Diggers' Song (Roud 1521) for our second on that theme of the evening. The song was actually written by Gerrard Winstanley who was the leader of the Diggers.

Simon finished the evening with When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford), something in with which people could join.

Please remember that this Friday (6 September), is our Harvest session, so themed songs will be encouraged. We won't be having the usual produce auction but there will be some nibbles, so please come along to swell our numbers.

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

(Number of people present - 5, of whom 4 performed)