Welcome new faces

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was a great turn-out at the Dragon Folk Club last week. Apart from some regulars, Paul and Denny brought non-singing friend Jill (don't believe it, I saw her singing along to the choruses). Also long time follower on Facebook, George, made her debut and brought her friend John who was visiting her from the far reaches of East Anglia. And let's not forget that George brought her very well behaved dog, Juniper. Let's hope we see and hear a lot more of George in the future - John's great too, but he's got a long way to come.

Next week's session will have a theme for Valentine's Day so songs of love and lust will be of interest though as always with themes at the Dragon Folk Club, it is totally optional and just for fun.

Simon was standing in for Colin as MC and Paul started the ball rolling with Grey funnel line (Cyril Tawney). Denny's first song was The shores of old Blighty (Graeme Miles).

George's first song for the Dragon was Glen Isla near bonny Glenshee (roud 832) and John's opener was his own Grandad (* John Hare).

Simon started with The world turned upside down (Leon Rosselson). We hadn't seen Rob at The Bridge for a while and he marked his return with MacPherson's rant (roud 2160).

Bob and Sue brought the first rotation to a close with Bear Creek blues (roud 17345 - AP Carter) and Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen) respectively.

As is customary, I will mention all songs sung by newcomers, in this case George and John:

• George - The ballad of old Seth Davy (Glyn Hughes)
• John - Rolling to Cairo town (* Dillon Bustin)
• George - As I roved out (* roud 3479), not to be confused with As I roved out (roud 277, laws O17)
• John - Little Brigid Flynn (* roud 39674 - William Percy French)
• George - Peggy Gordon (roud 2280)
• John - Clancy of the overflow (* Banjo Paterson - to a tune by John Hare himself)

Other songs new to the Dragon database were:

• Rob - The ballad of Lucy Jordan (* Shel Silverstein)
• Rob - The factory girl (* roud 1659), not to be confused with The factory girl (roud V4694) or others of the same name
• Bob - The year that Clayton Delaney died (* Tom T Hall)

The session was closed with Denny singing Byker Hill (roud 3488).

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

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

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

Sea and land

Dungeness (Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was another great session at the Dragon Folk Club last week. Rob made one of his occasional appearances to give us some great unaccompanied singing and we enjoyed a first visit from Mark who provided more unaccompanied singing as well as the unusual but enjoyable experience of solo five string bass guitar.

There will be no set theme again this week though that doesn't preclude people arriving with their own or something developing over the course of the evening. Remember that even when we set a theme it is always just for fun and very much optional.

Colin, MC as usual, started us off with Steve Knightley's Cousin Jack. Rob followed on with a different version of Geordie (* roud 90), which I have found in the singing of June Tabor.

Simon sang The Handweaver and the factory maid (roud 17771) and Mark's first contribution was Cyril Tawney's Grey funnel line.

Denny sang another song which I found in June Tabor's repertoire: Lisbon (roud 551, laws N8) and Paul finished the first rotation with The ship in distress (roud 807).

As usual I will mention all of newcomer Mark's songs together with anything else that needs highlighting.

Mark announced his second song as O my love's gone, which is a version of The forsaken mermaid (roud 466, laws K17).

Colin's version of The soldier and the sailor (roud 350) included versions with relatively modern verses including one about a "radiation-proof room".

Rob sang two songs written by his late friend Adey Shaw. The first was Monkey in the hold (*). The other one, about Adey's cat called Bosun, which was killed by a dog is simply To Bosun (*#).

Mark sang two of his own songs: Back and forth (*# Mark Gunner) and When it ends (* Mark Gunner). His last two songs of the evening were The crafty ploughboy (* roud 2637, laws L1) and Stan Rogers' Mary Ellen Carter.

Denny closed the evening with Dave Dodds' I can hew boys.

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 (#).

Goodbye Tony, hello Neil

Tony Bennett in the 1960s

At last week's Dragon Folk Club session it was great to invite Neil on his first visit. He came in just as Geoff was finishing the first round and so was straight in to sing. To his credit he didn't flinch and simply asked if we wanted a happy song or a sad one. He contributed to another great evening and we hope to see him again very soon.

Colin as MC started the singing, and noting the recent death of jazz singer Tony Bennett gave us one from his repertoire: Anything goes (Cole Porter).

In a similar musical vein Sue sang Everything stops for tea, written by Al Hoffman, Al Goodhart and Maurice Sigler. Both of these first two songs were new to the Dragon database, though of course not necessarily entirely new to the club.

Bob's first song of the evening was Gordon Lightfoot's Early Morning Rain.

Simon brought us a more sombre tone with Peat bog soldiers, written by prisoners in the Börgermoor Nazi moorland labour camp in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Denny sang the Scottish love ballad, Broom of the Cowdenknowes (roud 92, child 217). Paul called his song old, but finally admitted that Cyril Tawney's Grey funnel line was slightly younger than his own years.

Geoff was singing Ralph McTell's Streets of London as Neil walked into the room. Barely catching a breath, Neil gave us The rebel soldier, which is seems is a precursor to songs such as Jack o' Diamonds and Rye whiskey. All these songs are under 259 in the roud index. While Rye whiskey was already in the database, The rebel soldier was a new entry.

And so we completed the first circuit of the room.

Tradition is that I mention all the songs of a newcomer to the club, Neil in this case:

• The most laementable ballade of Edward the Young (Daniel Kahn) - new to the database
• Tiny notes (Sean Cooney) - new to the database
• Oh Shenandoah (roud 324) - bizarrely, new to the database (it must previously have escaped)

A little more about Neil later in this report.

Sue sang another "new" song: The ugly bug ball written by brothers Robert B Sherman and Richard M Sherman. It was written for the Disney film Summer Magic in which it was sung by Burl Ives. At first, Walt Disney didn't care for "Ugly Bug Ball", but Robert Sherman explained that to bugs, other bugs were not ugly even if they looked ugly to us, beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Disney liked the idea and the song went on to become one of the most popular songs of the year.

It fell to Neil to close the evening which he did with Picture in a frame (Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan) which was alos the final new entry into the database for the evening.

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

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

Children in Need 2022

The very first Pudsey bear and logo, used in 1985

It was good to have four singers at last week's Dragon Folk Club Session. Bob J and Sue once again joined us. It's good to see them becoming regulars and we hope you will join us. They are regulars at "Folk at Frampton Cotterell", which clashes with us on a Friday night, but is a monthly event, so they are still able to join us most weeks.

That makes us realise that there are three monthly folk-type events on Friday nights within a short distance of our venue at The Bridge Inn, Shortwood. We're not looking to poach their people, but if you attend any of them, please consider coming along on one of your free Fridays to see what we do. We don't bite and you might even enjoy yourself and become a regular while still attending your current venue just like Bob and Sue. The three monthly events in question are:

• Folk at Frampton Cotterell
• Downend Folk & Roots
• Pucklechurch Open Mic

It was Bob who started the ball rolling with John D Loudermilk's Angela Jones. Sue opened her account with a self-penned song called Recycled Teenager.

Simon pointed out that it was the evening of Children in Need, which Maggie S used to mark with a "children" themed session. He therefore made his first few songs somewhat child connected with: Morningtown ride (Malvina Reynolds), Bare necessities (Terry Gilkyson), Lily the Pink (John Gorman, Mike McGear, Roger McGough), amd When I'm five (David Bowie).

Colin's first song of the evening was Cyril Tawney's Grey Funnel Line.

Understandably not in the "a selection" playlist is Sue's own song, Ukulele, a version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah.

Colin asked me to check the origin of a song he sang: 2 day's Monday. It was indeed written by John Gorman, Mike McGear and Roger McGough and recorded by them as the band The Scaffold. You will note this was their second outing of the evening.

By now we were down to two in the session, but we sang on steadfastly.

Colin sang Ring of Fire, which we know from the singing of Johnny Cash. It was in fact written by his wife June Carter Cash together with Merle Kilgore and was first recorded by his sister-in-law Anita Carter. If you listen to the version linked here you will see there is quite a difference between their performances.

It also fell to Colin to close the evening which he did by singing No John No (roud 146).

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

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

Taking the Michael

Cyril Tawney,
who wrote Grey Funnel Line

(I would like to thank Derek who stood in for me as "scribe" at this week's session and provided the following report)

With your regular scribe absent, an exhausted and ashen-faced replacement arrived, having come from running, for Sport Relief, a one mile cross-country in a torrential hailstorm.

With Mike and Maggie lost to the fleshpots of Bognor, reliving their babyhoods in the 1960s, Richard was in charge of a small but select band who met to celebrate the Spring, discuss music, swap anecdotes – but most of all to sing our way through as much of Mike's repertoire as possible before he could get back and fine us.

Mike's musical proclivities therefore led to a lot of shanties, fore-bitters and just general Songs of the Seven Seas being performed, in the certain knowledge that even if none of us could remember his singing the song in question, provided that it had a ship in it somewhere, he probably had dibs on it anyway. So the evening sailed along from the Grey Funnel Line to the Fish of the Sea (the latter being a version remarkably deficient – to my East Anglian ear – in any mention of Happisburg Light!) and from the Shantyman of the Wildgoose Nation to Roll the Woodpile Down (which at my advanced age I always associate with Dave Macon).