A mixed bag

A Lincolnshire fenland farm in 2023
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

A happy band of four met for last week's un-themed session of the Dragon Folk Club. I'm rather late writing the report this week, so I will keep it short.

First of all let's get out of the way the advert for this Friday (1 March) when the theme will be St David's Day, which it is. Of course Welsh songs, songs about Wales and the Welsh, and at a push even songs about whales are very welcome, but really anything goes as long as it's acoustic, whether that's a song, a tune, or any other sort of performance.

And don't forget St David's other patronages, which compared to the other national saints of the UK and Ireland seem to be quite thin on the ground: Pembrokeshire (in South West Wales), Naas (the county town of County Kildare in Ireland), vegetarians, and poets.

To keep this brief I will mention just some of the less-often sung of the things we heard last week. You may think some of them are less-often sung for a reason, but I hope you will agree that others are gems.

• Colin - Radio Times (Tom Lewis)
• Paul - One more pull (Ian Woods)
• Simon - Jolene (Dolly Parton)
• Colin - Old Molly Metcalfe (Jake Thackeray)
• Simon - Love is like a butterfly (Dolly Parton)
• Colin - The frog's courtship (roud 16)
• Denny - Sweet thyme (John Conolly, Pete Mundy)
• Simon - The Lincolnshire song (John Sykes)
• Colin -  The herring song (roud 128)
• Denny - Loving Hannah (roud 454)
• Colin - Ivor (roud 2570)

I'll pause there just to note that we learnt the song Ivor tells the true story of dramatist, singer and composer Ivor Novello who was sentenced to eight weeks in Wormwood Scrubbs prison, serving four of those weeks, for misusing wartime petrol coupons. An admiring fan had stolen the coupons from her employer, but the court found that Novello was also culpable. This was a serious offence under rationing laws in wartime Britain.

• Colin - The pitmen poets (Jez Lowe)
• Colin - Little Mohee (roud 273, laws H8)
• Paul - Bird on the wire (Leonard Cohen)

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session - in fact it's all 36 of the songs we sang that evening.

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

Valentine's Day 2024

(AI image from Stable Diffusion)

Last week's session saw us mark Valentine's Day albeit two days later than the rest of the world. A perfectly happy, not even too cold, band of four singers got the evening underway, only to be joined around the half-way mark of the evening by Keith G who we hadn't seen for a long time, and a welcome joiner he was. Keith said he hadn't played the guitar for a long time so we didn't hear his excellent playing, but he gave us some worthwhile, unexpected, unaccompanied contributions.

You can hear versions representing all of the songs sung by following the usual "a selection" link below.

Colin, MC as usual, started off the evening with The Eddystone Light (roud 22257).

I'll just give a mention to a few of the other contributions from the evening, a few of which were new to the Dragon database:

• Sue - Hey there Delilah (Tom Higgerson)
• Bob - Blue days black nights (Ben Hall)
• Simon - It was a lover and his lass (V18701 - William Shakespeare, Thomas Morley)
• Bob - Blues stay away from me (Alton Delmore, Henry B Glover, Rabon Delmore, Wayne Raney)
• Sue - My guy (Smokey Robinson)
• Sue - Eternal flame (Susanna Hoffs, Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly)
• Keith - Better off without a wife (Tom Waits)
• Colin - Black Jack Davy (roud 1, child 200)
• Keith - Behind blue eyes (Pete Townshend)
• Keith - I'll get you (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)

Sue finished off the evening with In other words (fly me to the moon) (Bart Howard).

This week's Dragon session (Friday 23 February) will have no theme so as usual anything goes as long as it's acoustic. The next flurry of themes (just for fun) will probably be some more saints' days: St David (1st March on the nose), St Patrick (15th March for 17th), and St George (26th April for 23rd). We'll let you know if we come up with any more ideas. In the meantime you are welcome to join us any Friday evening from 8:15pm.

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

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

How to keep warm

(AI image from Stable Diffusion)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was enjoyable not least for some rarer songs being sung. Five singers met and managed not to freeze too hard by singing some songs of warmer climes and warmer times. You can hear all of those songs by following the "a selection" link below to a YouTube playlist.

Slightly bizarrely, Colin as MC started us off with The last shanty (Tom Lewis) and keeping to a maritime theme Simon, inspired by Rob's singing of The tow-rope girls on his last visit,which we remember is by Cicely Fox Smith and not by Tom Lewis at all, gave us Wave over wave (Jim Payne) to the same tune. Rob himself kept it nautical with The Greenland whale fishery (roud 347, laws K21), the first song of the evening totally new to the Dragon database.

We hadn't finished with the sea yet with Paul singing Roll Alabama Roll (roud 4710) and Denny selecting Bye-bye my Roseanna (roud 12380).

Colin's singing of The Roman gladiator (Bruce Campbell) recalled our friend Mike Starkey who we haven't seen for some time. Bruce Campbell, a Groundsman at Wethered's Brewery in Marlow, wrote the song around 1940.

Likewise, Simon's singing of Lasso the moon (Tom Mossman) reminded us of Tom of whom we receive regular reports, but who has not been able to join us for a long time. The song was written as a result of conversations between Tom and our late friend Ray Croll.

Another new song to the database was Mississippi summer (Si Kahn) sung by Rob, who also introduced another "new" song (definitely not new to the club though another entry in the database), General Taylor (roud 216).

Rob was definitely hot on finding gaps in the database because it was he who contributed I think it's going to rain today (Randy Newman). The final new song though came from Colin with Port of call (Kieran Halpin).

I'll leave you to listen to the rest of the songs from the evening. Suffice to say that the last song was The Holmfirth anthem (roud 1046) given to us by Denny.

This Friday's session (16th February) will be our Valentine's Day theme. Of course we know what St Valentine's Day means to most people, but bear in mind he patron saint of affianced couples, beekeepers, happy marriages, love, mentally ill people, plague, epilepsy, and Lesvos.

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

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

Friends and neighbours

Sam Cooke in 1963
(Photo from Billboard)

It was a theme-less evening at the Dragon Folk Club last week and we were pleased to see seven singers gather including occasional visitor Malcolm who hopped over the bridge from Wales.

It was Malcolm who started off the session with Dion DiMucci's Here in America, written following the killing of fellow singer Sam Cooke in 1964.

There are 34 songs in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below. There were 35 songs sung, which included a brand new song by Paul on its debut outing. It tells of his experiences several years ago with cancer and is entitled "Fathom my bowel". I have cheated somewhat by including a recording of the source song, obviously Fathom the bowl (roud 880).

The other song missing from the playlist was sung by Colin and is Harry Brown, written by our friend Mike Starkey, together with Pete McNab and tells the story of the last days of the Bristol sand dredger of that name and its final journeys to Barry and then to Bahrain.

The final song of the evening also came from Colin and provided a good opportunity for some singing along. It was Botany Bay (roud 3267).

This Friday's session (9 February) will be theme-less again in preparation for the Valentine's Day of the following week. See you at either of those sessions or on any Friday night except when occasionally notified here.

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

(Number of people present - 7 of whom 7 performed)