Blood and Roses

(Photo: webentwicklerin)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session continued the trend of eclectic songs and of meeting new and old friends. Notably, we saw the return to the club of old friend Roger who came with occasional visitor John. Roger said he would try to persuade his wife Chris along next time; it would be excellent to see and hear Chris again. We also had an unexpected and welcome visitor, but more of her later.

Your scribe wasn't around at the very beginning of the session, so please forgive any slight inaccuracies. Denny started things off with Young Banker (roud 3321), which Paul followed with the Ballad of Cursed Anna (Jonathan Kelly).

Sue gave us (Haywire Mac) Harry McClintock's Big Rock Candy Mountain (roud 6969) and Bob sang Sweet Little Liza (Dick van Altena). The latter was the first new song of the evening for the Dragon database. As usual this doesn't mean it definitely hasn't been sung at the club before, but that it probably hasn't been recorded in this blog.

Colin's first of the evening was The Greenside Wakes Song (roud 4585). Not only is is new to the database, but nowhere to be found on YouTube (at least not as a song), and therefore it is not in the "a selection" playlist linked below. The only song of the evening which is missing.

John B fittingly gave us Sloop John B (roud 15634) with accompaniment from Roger and singing from all assembled. Meanwhile, Roger's turn brought Ralph McTell's Streets of London.

Simon completed the first round with Roger Whittaker's geographically inaccurate Durham Town. A boy sitting by the river in Durham would be by the River Wear and not the Tyne. How should South African Roger know?

Denny quickly picked up on that and made a pairing with The Water of Tyne (roud 1364), the third song new to the database that evening.

Paul also brought a new song to the party with Seven Virgins (roud 127), from the singing of Norma Waterson.

The new songs for the database were coming thick and fast when Bob sang The Last Ride, written by Robert Halcomb and Ted Daffan, and made famous by Hank Snow.

John had found a new song from Glacia Robinson in the form of Survivor.

Paul got us all singing along to Blood Red Roses (roud 931) which AL Lloyd suggested might be from the early 19th century, but the chorus at least of which Bert himself seems to have brought in possibly with some standard shanty verses.

Bob shook us all up with I knew the bride when she used to rock'n'roll (Nick Lowe) - another new song to the database.

Paul revisited his rendition of Alex Glasgow's Close the Coalhouse Door from the previous week for Bob's benefit since he had been absent.

John was Knockin' on Heaven's Door, but not with the straight Bob Dylan version, rather with words by Ted Christopher relating to the 1996 Dunblane Massacre where in an incident unusual in the UK 16 pupils and one teacher were killed and 15 were injured at a primary school. The man with the gun also shot himself dead. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history. It resulted in the private ownership of most handguns within Great Britain being made illegal with few exceptions.

It was Denny who introduced us to A Mon Like Thee which was written by Edmund Hill from St Helens in Merseyside, formerly Lancashire.

It was around about this time that the door opened and there stood Allie, a pub regular who some of us have come to know in passing and have regularly encouraged to join us for the singing. She declared that she had been standing outside the door for some time and was enjoying the music. We tried again to encourage her to enter and while she did not, she stood on the threshold and sang a creditable performance of Here Come the Navvies, written by Ian Campbell. I hope we see and hear more of Allie in the future. She was about to head into singing the Lincolnshire Poacher (roud 299, laws L14), but in the end disappeared off down the corridor.

The last "new" song of the evening was John's singing of Farewell Angelina (Bob Dylan) before Simon brought the session to a close with When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 9 of whom 9 performed)