New lease of life

The Jacobite Steam Train approaching Glenfinnan Viaduct
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Your usual scribe wasn't at the Dragon Folk Club for last week's session and yet there was a decent turn-out including one very welcome newcomer, Joe, a very good guitarist and singer. Because I wasn't present please forgive any inaccuracies in this report. While I was provided with some good notes, there's nothing like being there to avoid having to make certain assumptions.

Paul Kicked off the 

Paul Kicked off the evening with Louis/Louisa Killen's The last Leviathan (*): a version of Andy Barnes' The Last of the Great Whales. This was not only the first song of the evening, but also the first new entry of the evening into the Dragon database and like all of them is marked with an asterisk (*). Denny followed Paul with The good old way (* roud 23864)

Next came Colin with Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, followed by the first pair of songs from Stuart an Carrie performing as a duo: Dink's song (* roud 10057) and On broadway (* Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller).

Bob's first song was John Prine's New train and Sue's was Swinging on a star (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke).

Steve gave us The Blarney roses (roud 6329) before newcomer, Joe performed a set of three tunes: Hector the hero (* James Scott Skinner), Merrily kissed the quaker (*), and a third the name of which he had forgotten. This brought the first rotation to a close.

It was Joe who had the next "new" song: Radiohead's No surprises (* Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway).

Stuart sang what I assume was Daniel Babin's Bryson city (*) and Carrie followed that with Gordon Lightfoot's Daylight Katy (*).

Joe's third performance was of The Lakes of Ponchartrain (roud 1836, laws H9).

Stuart brought us another "new" song in the traditional American Willie Moore (* roud 4816). Carrie also kept us on our toes with Ventura highway (* Dewey Bunnell).

Sue's own Recycled teenager is the only performance (apart from Joe's unnamed tune) that doesn't appear in the playlist linked from "a selection" below.

Joe's last song of the evening was also a self-penned song, but one that can be found on YouTube: Over and over (Joe Boon).

It fell to Paul to finish off the session with Dave Webber's The parting song.

We hope that Joe joins us again very soon, and that you, dear reader, also come and sing to us, with us, or simply listen.

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

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