Visitors from across the pond

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

After two weeks without a report the Dragon Folk Club blog is back and this is going to be a good one though I say so myself. There were sessions in the intervening weeks and I will try to put something together to briefly cover the necessaries of those events. In the meantime though here is the latest news from the club.

Last Friday's session sounds like a smasher though I'm afraid I wasn't there. There were three visitors, two of whom were singers. Not only that, but they were from another continent, though I believe one of them is currently resident in the vicinity.

Colin, as usual in his MC's seat, started things off with Leave her Johnny (roud 354). Bob followed on with Matchbox (Carl Perkins) and Sue sang Beyond the sea (Charles Trenet, Albert Lasry, Jack Lawrence).

Kate, visiting from Philadelphia, clearly picking up on Colin's first song, gave us Archimedes (The Lever) written by Nat Case and parodying Leave her Johnny. This was also the first of several new songs to be added to the Dragon database this week. The remainder I will simply tag with an asterisk (*).

Kate's friend Sadie, who also hails from across the pond, sang Tom Lewis' The last shanty. Since Sadie's friend Tom wasn't singing this marked the end of the first rotation of the evening.

As is traditional I will list all of the remaining songs sung by newcomers Kate and Sadie.

Kate:

• Will the circle be unbroken (Ada R. Habershon, Charles H. Gabriel)
• Mingulay boat song (Sir Hugh S Roberton)
• Goodnight Irene (roud 11681)
• Preacher and the slave (roud 9612 - Joe Hill)
• Wild mountain thyme (roud 541 - Francis McPeake)
• Solidarity forever (* roud 15158 - Ralph Chaplin)

Sadie:

• Tonight you belong to me (* Billy Rose, Lee David)
• Little boxes (Malvina Reynolds)
• Swingin' on a star (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)
• Take me out to the ball game (* roud 36252 - Jack Norworth, Albert Von Tilzer)
• Ten thousand miles away (* roud 1778 - attributed to Joseph B. Geoghegan)
• The rattlin' bog (* roud 129)

The other songs new to the Dragon database, though not necessarily new to the club, were:

• Colin - Erin grá mo chroí (* roud 14056)
• Sue - Tickle my heart (* Joe Brown)
• Colin - Death of a clown (* Dave Davies, Ray Davies)

There was just one song in the evening which isn't in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below and that was Sue's own autobiographical version of House of the Rising Sun. There's nothing dodgy there, it tells of how she met her late husband on cycle tours of the Cotswolds and the course of her family life since.

It was also Sue who finished off the evening with George Harrison's Something.

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

(Number of people present - 6 of whom 5 performed)