For Singing

Harry Brown
(Based on a photograph by Hugh Llewelyn - Flickr)

Numbers were unfortunately back to being depleted last Friday but some worthwhile singing was done.

Colin arrived in time to take up his regular role as MC, but with Simon arriving first it was his job to start off the session, singing a Canadian song, Peggy Gordon (Roud 2280). This was followed by Colin with Old Johnny Bugger (Roud 19111). Those who are squeamish of the title of this Lancashire/ Yorkshire version may prefer the title used by Shirley Collins on her 2016 album Lodestar which was Old Johnny Buckle. The album notes say "Sung by Mrs Hewett, a ploughman's wife of Mapledurwell, Hants, recorded by Bob Copper in July 1955. It's an upside-down song, a daft little nonsense song of contradictions. A far nobler variant of this type of song is Nottamun Town." I have also seen the final name of the title as Booker, Bigger, Booger, Boker, and many more.

Mike's first song was Napoleon Bonaparte (Roud 1626) which is also called Napoleon's Farewell to Paris.

We visited a couple of the big folk rock bands. First Simon with Boys of Bedlam (V16366) the tune being by Dave Moran and Nic Jones of The Halliard, and which became associated with Steeleye Span. Second was Colin with Fairport Convention's Genesis Hall (Richard Thompson). "Genesis Hall" was an abandoned hotel in London's Drury Lane, originally the Bell Hotel. It had been occupied by hippie squatters. The London police had evicted the squatters, and eventually caused the building to be razed. Thompson's father was a member of the London police force at the time, and the lyrics refer to the incident.

Mike had been reminded about his next song by the singing of his Bristol Shantymen colleague, Jeff Blake. The song was Sailboat Malarkey about which A L Lloyd wrote "The tune and most of the words come from the Bahamas, from the singer Frederick McQueen. In the Bahamas it's mostly used for boat-launching, but it serves equally well for capstan work. ‘Malarkey’ here is a mispronunciation of ‘Malachi’."

Colin brought out If by David Gates of the band Bread. A bit of trivia is that this song reached number one in the UK singles chart in 1975, not for Bread but for Telly Savalas (his version), becoming the song with the shortest title to reach No. 1 in the UK.

Mike sang Harry Brown a written by Pete MacNab with a little help from Mike himself. The song, in the form of a shanty, tells of a well-loved Bristol-based dredger which eventually sank in a second life working in Bahrain.

After a lot more singing the evening was closed by Colin with a new song from Tom Lewis called A Shanty For Singing.

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

(Number of people present - 3, of whom 3 performed)

Christmas II 2018

We have missed a week at Dragon Folk Club and I've had a rest, so this report is looking back to our second, less official Christmas session of 2018 on 21 December and forward to our first session of 2019 on 4 January. All will welcome as usual and the New Year theme is definitely optional.

Back to Christmas II 2018 and the session was started off by MC, Colin with John Prine's Christmas In Prison.

It was very nice to see a return visit by our friends from Yorkshire, Janet and Malcolm. Malcolm read a poem in the first part of the evening about cooking the Christmas goose but he wasn't able to perform the second piece he had prepared because it was something along the lines of pass-the-parcel and needed more people than we had by the time his second spot came round.

…That’s what I wrote it for

Fred Wedlock (Photo by Weydonian)

When your Substitute Scribe asked Mike, who had just sung The Redland Green Bobby [British Bobby], to confirm his view that it was "One of Fred's", little did he realise that the question would develop into one of those half-hour ‘workshop’ discussions for which The Dragon is (in)famous – in this case on the question of Folk Music, Copyright and Attributing Songs to the Correct Writer. The conversation passed, anecdotally and polemically, through such writers as Mr Wedlock, Cyril Tawney, Roger Watson, Canadian guitarist Vera Johnson, Ed Pickford, Michael Starkey and Woody Guthrie, whose copyright notice is referenced in the title above viz. "This song is copyrighted in U.S. for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singing it without my permission, will be a mighty good friend of mine, 'cause that's what I wrote it for."

Halloween 2015

Stanton Drew stone circle
(photo: Simon Meeds)

So, after last week's session the handover has officially been made. Maggie has retired from running the club and Colin is the new master: holder of "the book" and the money bag (sometimes affectionately called "the scrotum"), which Mike made forty years ago. We hope and believe that Mike and Maggie will still be regulars at the club but this move takes some of the responsibility from Maggie's shoulders which she has borne for so long.

The themes this week were Halloween and Australia/New Zealand (being the finalists in the Rugby World Cup). I think almost all, if not all songs met the former theme and a couple gave a nod to the latter.

Life's a long song

Lady Astor, probably unfairly maligned
in the song, D-Day Dodgers

Despite the title of this report the session last week had nothing to do with Jethro Tull as far as I know nor was there a theme really but we were so thin on the ground that the suggestion was that we should sing our longer songs so that it didn't come round too often. Whether or not we succeeded you can judge for yourself.

Colin was MC for the evening and Derek kicked of proceedings with The Pride Of Springfield Road. Mike's first song was one he'd held back from the VE Day 70 session, though Simon had sung it on that occasion. Now was the right time though being the nearest session to the anniversary of the Normandy landings for D-Day Dodgers (Roud 10499, Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn).

Steeleye, unions and other things

Woody Guthrie

There was no theme this week so everyone sang whatever they wished. Mike kicked off the evening but I unfortunately arrived just after he finished his first song, so its identity remains a mystery to me. Next came Robin with Barbara Allen. Derek's first of the evening was Admiral Benbow.

Both Richard and Simon showed Steeleye Span influences in their first songs: Richard with Thomas the rhymer and Simon with Boys of Bedlam.