Pleasantly satisfied

Mince pies are for life, not just for Christmas

It could have been so lonely with some regulars not available last week, but happily we were joined once again by Bob and Sue despite their uncertainty the previous week, which at least meant that Simon wasn't singing to himself all evening. There was no set theme and the usual eclectic mix of songs came out.

Simon kicked off the session with Graham Moore's Tom Paine's Bones about Thomas Paine, English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary who wrote Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. After his death, Paine's body was brought to New Rochelle, but the Quakers would not allow it to be buried in their graveyard as requested by his will, so his remains were buried under a walnut tree on his farm. In 1819, English agrarian radical journalist William Cobbett dug up his bones and transported them back to England with the intention to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but this never happened. The bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over fifteen years later, but were later lost. There is no confirmed report of what happened to them after that although various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains, such as his skull and right hand.

Sue's first song of the evening was Paul Simon's Homeward Bound, and Bob completed the first rotation with Leon Payne's Lost Highway, written in 1948 and made famous by Hank Williams who recorded it in 1949.

Possibly new songs to the Dragon included:

• Raindrops keep fallin' on my head sung by Sue (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)
• Hawaii blues sung by Bob (Andy Stein, Billy C Farlow, Ernie Hagar, Michael Richards)
• I'll see you in my dreams sung by Sue (Isham Jones, Gus Kahn)
• Something sung by Sue (George Harrison)
• Somethin' stupid sung by Sue (C Carson Parks)

Bob and Sue stayed to hear Simon sing Jake Thackray's Isabel Makes Love Upon National Monuments. After this Simon continued singing to himself until the pub staff called a slightly early end to the evening since he was the only remaining customer, everyone else having gone home in disgust at the England football team's earlier 0-0 draw against the USA.

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

(Number of people present - 3 of whom 3 performed)

No mince pies were harmed in the making of this session.

Children in Need 2022

The very first Pudsey bear and logo, used in 1985

It was good to have four singers at last week's Dragon Folk Club Session. Bob J and Sue once again joined us. It's good to see them becoming regulars and we hope you will join us. They are regulars at "Folk at Frampton Cotterell", which clashes with us on a Friday night, but is a monthly event, so they are still able to join us most weeks.

That makes us realise that there are three monthly folk-type events on Friday nights within a short distance of our venue at The Bridge Inn, Shortwood. We're not looking to poach their people, but if you attend any of them, please consider coming along on one of your free Fridays to see what we do. We don't bite and you might even enjoy yourself and become a regular while still attending your current venue just like Bob and Sue. The three monthly events in question are:

• Folk at Frampton Cotterell
• Downend Folk & Roots
• Pucklechurch Open Mic

It was Bob who started the ball rolling with John D Loudermilk's Angela Jones. Sue opened her account with a self-penned song called Recycled Teenager.

Simon pointed out that it was the evening of Children in Need, which Maggie S used to mark with a "children" themed session. He therefore made his first few songs somewhat child connected with: Morningtown ride (Malvina Reynolds), Bare necessities (Terry Gilkyson), Lily the Pink (John Gorman, Mike McGear, Roger McGough), amd When I'm five (David Bowie).

Colin's first song of the evening was Cyril Tawney's Grey Funnel Line.

Understandably not in the "a selection" playlist is Sue's own song, Ukulele, a version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah.

Colin asked me to check the origin of a song he sang: 2 day's Monday. It was indeed written by John Gorman, Mike McGear and Roger McGough and recorded by them as the band The Scaffold. You will note this was their second outing of the evening.

By now we were down to two in the session, but we sang on steadfastly.

Colin sang Ring of Fire, which we know from the singing of Johnny Cash. It was in fact written by his wife June Carter Cash together with Merle Kilgore and was first recorded by his sister-in-law Anita Carter. If you listen to the version linked here you will see there is quite a difference between their performances.

It also fell to Colin to close the evening which he did by singing No John No (roud 146).

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

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

Remembrance 2022

Yes, we were back down to two singers at the Dragon Folk Club session last week, but those who were there stuck pretty well to the Remembrance theme throughout and an interesting variety of songs were sung. If you can be there this Friday that would be great and to make things easier there will be no theme.

Colin was MC as usual and started of proceedings with Jim Woodland's Ghost Story, from the singing of Roy Bailey.

Simon gave a first outing to his rendition of Mike Harding's The Accrington Pals. This was the first of four songs Simon gave us from Mike's singing, three of which he wrote. The others were: Jimmy Spoons (Mike Harding), Bomber's Moon (Mike Harding) and And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Eric Bogle).

In the absence of Derek who sometimes sings it, Colin performed The 51st Highland Division's Farewell To Sicily by Hamish Henderson (roud 10501), set to the first, third and fourth parts of the pipe tune 'Farewell to the Creeks' by Pipe Major James Robertson of Banff.

Colin sang the Vera Lynn version of Lili Marlene (roud 15403, German words by Hans Leip, tune Norbert Schultze, variously translated into English by Norman Baillie-Stewart, Tommie Connor, and Theodore Stephanides). After this Simon had to sing The D-Day Dodgers (roud 10499, Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn) to the same tune.

I was unable to find a YouTube recording of The Kriegie Ballad (roud 10516, Robert Garioch) which Colin sang so you won't find it in the playlist linked from "a selection below". 

Colin sang a couple of Steve Knightley (Show of Hands) songs: Battlefield dance floor and The Gamekeeper.

Simon finished the evening, probably slightly off-topic with Claudy Banks (roud 266, laws N40).

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

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

Bonfire Night 2022

Cleeve Hill Youth Hostel

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had a theme, variously described as "Bonfire Night", "Guy Fawkes" and "Campfire Songs". This gave a reasonably large scope and of course our theme's are always optional, so there were plenty of off-topic songs.

Before I report what happened last week, you may be interested to know that this Friday's session will have a "Remembrance" theme though of course as always it is optional and anything goes as long as it's acoustic.

We were pleased last week to see the return of Bob J and Sue for their second visit. We know they won't be around this week, but let's hope they return very soon.

There were an unusually large number of songs which I couldn't find on YouTube for one reason or another, so I will concentrate on those, but you can find the others as usual in the "a selection" link at the end of this report.

Colin, our regular MC, started us off with his own song "Guy" with lines such as "The rain is falling and we're getting wet" and "give us a penny or more if you can", referring of course to the tradition of "Penny for the Guy" where children went door to door asking for money to spend on their bonfire party. It was noted that this tradition seems to have ceased... no doubt ousted by the American tradition of Trick or Treat for Halloween, which was just last week.

Sue's first song of the evening was inspired by her ukulele group having practised Sam Cooke's Only Sixteen. Her version, possibly autobiographical, was "Seventy Three".

Simon brought out a song he has sung at previous "campfire" sessions: When the scouts come hiking in. Apart from obviously using the tune to When the Saints go marching in I haven't found any information on this song.

Sue's last song, which it eventually became obvious would be the last song of the evening, was another self-penned one. She had attended a ukulele workshop and everyone had to perform a song. She chose to adapt The House of the Rising Sun to an autobiographical story. In her story the house in question was a pub of that name on Cleeve Hill, near Cheltenham with which your scribe is quite familiar. It was significant on a cycling club tour where Sue and her companions stayed at the nearby (now defunct) Youth Hostel. It also started the story of Sue and her late husband.

After Bob J and Sue had left we might have continued as a two-some but we were joined by the landlady's husband, Mark who chatted to us about the current difficulties of the hospitality trade and some of the ideas he has for diversifying the offering of The Bridge Inn. When Mark left us we decided to call it a night.

See you this Friday for more fun, music, song and laughter.

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

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

Halloween 2022

Stanton Drew (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had the theme of Halloween. Happily we were back to reasonable numbers with five singers. We didn't all slavishly follow the theme, but that's fine.

While I think of it, this Friday's theme is variously "Bonfire Night", "Guy Fawkes" and "Campfire Songs", so that is a fairly large target to aim for, but as always the theme is optional. You are welcome to sing, play or otherwise perform anything as long as it's acoustic.

The five at last week's session included two first-timers, Bob J and Sue. In line with tradition I will aim to mention everything that they performed through the evening.

Colin, in his usual MC role, started us off with Chris Hoban's Hallows Eve, a song from the singing of Show of Hands. Steve Knightley says:

It came from socialising with Chris [Hoban]. He’s a Topsham resident, he’s about my age. He’s actually a music teacher. He’s possibly the best unknown songwriter I know, and he’s able to research a topic like this because he’s quite an intellectual guy and from a devout background. His father was seriously high up ecclesiastical figure in London in the Catholic church.

Chris knows his religious history, and in the course of just hanging out he played me this song, and I said “Wow, I love that!” We haven’t really changed the arrangement from how he originally played it to me. There was some debate when we recorded it about the lyric: “the worlds that part us now are twain”, about what that actually means.

I thought it should be “the worlds that unite us now are twain”, but you’d need to talk to Chris about that! It’s a great song, and you’ve just reminded me that it’s one that we should be playing round about now.

Simon gave us another theme-appropriate piece with The Souling Song (Roud 304).

Last week brought a welcome return for Rob who has been busy the last few weekends including singing with Eagle Alley at Mevagissey Shanty Festival. His first song of the evening was The wife of Usher's well (roud 196, child 79). It's always good when it's possible to link to our own singer performing a song.

And so to our welcome first-timers at the Dragon Folk Club... Bob hit the theme with Ghost Trains, written by Famous Lashua. Sue, unable to find what she was looking for to match the theme, gave us Big Rock Candy Mountain (roud 6696), believed to have been originally written by Harry McClintock. Sue's version seemed to be closer though to the Burl Ives, family friendly, version - which is absolutely fine by us.

Colin took us to Somerset to meet the devil in Dancer's of Stanton Drew (Jim Parker, Muriel Holland).

Simon offered With her head tucked underneath her arm (RP Weston, Bert Lee - roud 37117) with mentions of "King Henry", so Rob followed up with King Henry (roud 3967, child 32).

Bob, who variously sings blues and bluegrass it seems, said that his next song had been sung by various rockers, but that his version was from a blues-man whose name I didn't catch. Blind Lemon Jefferson wrote and recorded a song entitled Match Box Blues in 1927, possibly based on Ma Rainey's 1924 Lost Wandering Blues. From the snatches that I noted down of Bob's song it more closely matched Carl Perkins' Matchbox released in 1957. Carl Perkins's father Buck suggested that he write a song based on snatches of lyrics that he remembered. Buck knew only a few lines from the 1927 song from the recordings by Jefferson or the Shelton Brothers. As Perkins sang the few words his father had suggested, Jerry Lee Lewis, who was at that time a session piano player at Sun Studios, started a boogie-woogie riff. Perkins began to improvise on his guitar and with lyrics. Perkins maintained that he had never heard Jefferson's song when he recorded "Matchbox". Of course the Jerry Lee Lewis link is appropriate on the day of his death. Sorry if I've misrepresented Bob's intentions.

Next Sue sang us House of the Rising Sun (roud 6393). It seems that the popular tune made famous by The Animals was first put together by Dave Van Ronk. Van Ronk had learned it sometime in the 1950s, from a recording by Hally Wood, the Texas singer and collector, who had got it from an Alan Lomax field recording by a Kentucky woman named Georgia Turner. Van Ronk put a different spin on it by altering the chords and using a bass line that descended in half steps.

After this Simon couldn't resist sharing Mary McCloud's parody of the same song, House of the Rising Damp (sorry no recording yet).

Colin was still battling away on the theme, singing A Lyke Wake Dirge (roud 8194)

Bob and Sue joined forces to perform In other words (Fly me to the moon) written in 1954 by Bart Howard. At this point, Sue's potential Halloween song turned up among the "Fly me" sheets held by Bob so she went on to sing Riders in the sky (Stan Jones), better known as "Ghost riders in the sky".

Bob's next contribution was Fireball Mail written by Fred Rose and Floyd Jenkins. Sue's last contribution before they both left for the evening was Don't fence me in. Cole Porter received the original writing credits for tune and lyric of this song which was to be used in the film Adios, Argentina which was never made. porter had been asked to write a cowboy song for the movie. He bought a poem by Robert Fletcher for $250 and reworked it. Porter wanted to give Fletcher co-authorship credit, but his publishers did not allow it. After the song became popular Fletcher hired attorneys who negotiated his co-authorship credit in subsequent publications. Although it was one of the most popular songs of its time, Porter claimed it was his least favourite of his compositions.

In the rest of the session we were treated to a couple of "rare songs". The first was from Rob, who sang White dog of Yockenthwaite, a poem by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe set to music by Brian Bedford of Artisan fame. The other was Great Uncle Frank, a song sung by Colin from his own pen.

The penultimate song of the evening, sung by Simon was The Lambton worm (roud 2337) which by coincidence Rob was at that very moment considering singing. Instead Rob finished the session off in theme with Ballad of cursed Anna, written by Jonathan Kelly.

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

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