Mixing it up

Friday's Dragon Folk Club session was rather enjoyable. Denny and Paul brought along their friend Helen. As I warned last week, this will be an abbreviated blog report with no YouTube playlist, written quickly before this dragon disappears in a puff of smoke for a few days.

As far as I am aware there will be no official theme next week (20th June), but we will be short of a few regular bodies, so I would be grateful if you can make an extra effort to turn up and help Colin to sing up a storm.

Back to the recent session, the ladies' toilet was out of action so we had an intermittent stream of them through our room, but all were quiet and respectful to the singing that was going on and caused no trouble at all.

Paul kicked off proceedings with Tom Lehrer's The Irish Ballad, to be followed by Denny with Samuel Laycock's A tribute to the drowned. The latter was about a disaster at sea where 27 volunteer lifeboatmen from St Annes and Southport died on 9 and 10 December 1886 while attempting to rescue the crew of the German barque Mexico, which ran aground in a gale on the Main Bank off Southport, Lancashire, while en route from Liverpool to Guayaquil in Ecuador.

Helen had only prepared one song to sing, but it was a good joiner-inner, being Sandi Thom's I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair) (* Tom Gilbert, Sandi Thom). While this was her only solo performance of the evening, Helen proved a strong support with her chorus singing. She promised to return with more songs another time. We can't wait!

Colin's first song of the evening was The old A1 (* Pete McGregor). Stan followed that with Plaisir d'amour (* Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian).

Simon completed the first rotation with The Lambton worm (roud 2337 - Clarence M. Leumane).

Keeping it very brief, here are the remaining songs new to the Dragon database:

• Colin - Rainbow warrior (* Patricia Middleton, Douglas Dinn)
• Stan - That silver-haired Daddy of mine (* Gene Autry, Jimmy Long)
• Colin - Condoleezza's Cowboys (* Pete McGregor)
• Stan - The end of the world (* Arthur Kent, Sylvia Dee)
• Stan - I will always love you (* Dolly Parton)

Denny finished the evening with Pleasant and delightful (roud 660, laws O30).

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

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*).

Vistors welcome

Bob Watson who died on 31st May

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session saw us able to welcome two new first time visitors: Richard and Anne are from the Stroud area and they brought some excellent songs, singing and playing to our evening as well as their two very well behaved canine companions. We hope they return soon. We really have had some great visitors recently and long may it continue. Perhaps some of them will even become regular?

This Friday there will be no official theme once again though you are welcome to bring your own or make one up as you go along. A bit of an early warning - next week's report is likely to be brief, probably without a YouTube playlist. Normal service should be resumed the following week.

Back to last week's session, Colin, MC as usual, opened the account in memory of the recently deceased Bob Watson by singing Bob's Shantyman.

Richard and Anne opened their Dragon account with No telling (* Linda Thompson) and Harvest moon (* Neil Young).

Bob's first song was So much trouble (* Brownie McGhee) and Sue's was Beyond the sea (Charles Trenet, Albert Lasry, Jack Lawrence). The latter being an English language version of Charles Ternet's La Mer.

Simon marked the 81st anniversary of the Normandy landings and completed the first rotation with D-Day Dodgers (Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn).

In the second rotation Anne sang Cold Missouri Waters (* James Keelaghan) and Richard gave us his own version (*# Richard Cox) of Carrickfergus (roud 17556). The popular version of the song is attributed to Dominic Behan who said he learned the third verse from Peter O'Toole. Richard's version tells of a man who would like to go abroad for his holiday, but his wife wants to stay in Ireland.

Colin debuted a song which he heard from the singing of friend of the club, Terry Cock, that being What happened to the ponies (Jim Moreland). This is the first time I've been able to find a recording of the song to add to the playlist linked from "a selection" below.

Continuing the tradition of mentioning all songs from newcomers to the club, Anne and Richard sang Stan Rogers' Lock-keeper, and Richard went solo on his own version (*# Richard Cox) of Spencer the Rover (roud 1115) in which Spencer is dissatisfied with the service being provided by the council in Stroud. He tries moving to Wales, but finally returns.

On the next rotation Richard and Anne gave us Graham Nash's Wasted on the way (*), and Richard sang The man who wrote the songs (*) which was written by our very own Derek Brinkley who had paid us a long awaited visit only the week before.

Returning to singing solo, Anne performed In search of angels (* Calum McDonald, Rory McDonald) from the band Runrig, of who she was clearly a fan having attended their last gig in Stirling in 2018.

Richard's last song of the evening was Chris Smither's Origin of species (*).

Sue sang her own song, Recycled teenager (#) and Bob evoked Lynyrd Skynyrd's version of J J Cale's Call me the breeze (*).

Simon finished the session off with Stan Rogers' Northwest passage.

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

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

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and songs not to be found in the playlist linked from "a selection" are marked with a hash (#).

A welcome return

Redcliffe Wharf, Bristol (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last Friday's Dragon Folk Club session was special to those of us who have been around for a while. Not only did we have a highly respectable head count, being joined by regular irregulars Roger, Stuart and Steve, but were able to welcome back to the fold the long absent Derek and Maggie, complete with new canine companion Bertie.

Like last week's, this week's session will be without a theme so as usual anything goes as long as it's acoustic.

Despite having memory issues and having not sung in public for three and a half years, Derek made a valiant attempt with four songs from his formerly vast repertoire. Both Derek and Maggie joined in with numerous choruses in fine voice and we hope to see them again soon.

Colin started us off with Last night I had the strangest dream (Ed McCurdy) and Roger followed him with This land is your land (Woody Guthrie).

Stuart had expected to be accompanied by Carrie, so when she turned out to be unavailable he had to quickly rework his set-list. His first was Bert Jansch's Soho (*).

Simon opened his account with Bonny ship the Diamond (roud 2172).

Paul sang Song for Ireland (Phil Colclough, June Colclough) and Denny stayed in the Irish Sea with The Ellan Vannin tragedy (Hughie Jones).

Derek offered us the first song he had sung at the beginning of his singing career, suggesting that this evening was the end of it (we hope not). The song was Roger Watson's Invalid miner (#).

Steve closed the first rotation with The rare ould times (Pete St John).

In the second rotation Stuart gave us a song new to the Dragon database which I believe was How long, how long blues (* Leroy Carr).

Derek's second song was one I think he calls The lobster (roud 149) though I wouldn't be surprised if he collected it from Cyril Barber who apparently called it Jimmy Johnson. His next song was Mary went to a tea party (# roud 24991) which he collected from Bertha Brown.

Colin sang Robb Johnson's More than enough (*).

The last "new" song of the evening came from Stuart and was Roger McGuinn's version of the traditional He was a friend of mine (*) which deals with the subject of John F Kennedy's assassination. Stuart's final performance was a repertoire first with Lady Franklin's lament (roud 487, laws K09).

Derek's final song was Jack Hall (roud 369, laws L5) and the final song of the evening, coming from Steve, was Leave her Johnny (roud 354).

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

(Number of people present - 9 of whom 8 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and songs not to be found in the playlist linked from "a selection" are marked with a hash (#).