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 (#).

Ne'er cast a clout

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

We weren't too sure last week whether we would get a good session at the Dragon Folk Club with our usual MC, Colin, being away, but Simon stepped in and we had a pretty good time.

Simon started the ball rolling with The moonshine can (roud 9949). This was followed with the Swinton May song from Denny. Paul thought he might have a new song for the database with Blackbird (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) but that one was just pipped to the post by Colin a few short weeks ago. Steve first song was the Jolly waggoner (roud 1088).

My usual criteria for making special mention of songs doesn't really get me anywhere this time. All thirty six songs we sung were available on YouTube and are therefore included in the playlist linked from "a selection" below, and there was only one sing that was new to the Dragon database (though not necessarily to the club) and that was Lisbon (roud 551, laws N8) which was sung by Denny.

Although we didn't have any more new songs, we did have a few first performances by specific singers to be recorded in the database:

• Paul - The aforementioned Blackbird
• Simon - The keeper (roud 1519)
• Simon - Hotel California (Don Felder, Don Henley, Glenn Frey)
• Simon - Hal an tow (roud 1520)

In pre-database times Simon had definitely sung The keeper and Hotel California, and probably also Hal an tow.

And so we kept on with the singing and the banter until Steve closed the evening with Cyril Tawney's The ballad of Sammy's Bar.

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

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