Eerily quiet

Friendly zombies in Dublin (Photo: Simon Meeds)

We aren't setting themes for our sessions at the moment but last Friday presented an obvious opportunity to bring out something spooky for Halloween. Unfortunately only two of us rose to the challenge.

Colin MCing started the evening off with a song of his own writing entitled Great Uncle Frank which Simon followed up with the properly traditional Halloween Souling Song (Roud 304).

And so it all came round too quickly this time; back to Colin for Dancers of Stanton Drew (Jim Parker, Muriel Holland), a cautionary tale from Somerset warning not to dance on a Sunday. Simon drew on the songwriting of Russian / Ingush performer Daria Kulesh and her song Begone! (The Witch of Walkern) telling a story from her adopted Hertfordshire about a woman accused of witchcraft and saved by a judge from the city.

Colin took his next from the singing of Martin Carthy: The Devil and the Feathery Wife (Roud 12551) while Simon took us westward for Stan Jones' 1948 song Riders in the Sky. Yes, the word "Ghost" was not in the original title.

Back to Colin for The Wife of Usher's Well (Roud 196, Child 79). Colin often takes songs from the works of bands such as Steeleye Span, but in this case though they popularised it, he assures us his version is from the tradition. Simon's song this round was certainly not from "the tradition" being a 1971 hit single by Native American band Redbone, Witch Queen of New Orleans (Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas).

Being such a small contingent we wove much conversation through the evening touching such subjects as guitar playing, the Roud index and Wikipedia.

Finally we came to the closing round where Colin sang Widecombe Fair (Roud 137) and Simon finished with Zombie Jamboree (possibly written by Conrad Eugene Mauge, Jr).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 2, of whom 2 performed)