Sad news and happier

Geoff Gammon
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was an excellent turn-out at the Dragon Folk Club last week. That's not to say we wouldn't welcome more, but it was a refreshing change to have so many people to bounce ideas and songs off.

Before we get to the report proper I have two important pieces of news.

We have heard this week of the recent death of our friend Geoff Gammon who made his first appearance at the club on 9th September 2016 and quickly became a regular. While doctors had managed to keep his long-term illness at bay for several years it had recently caught up with him and he had become only an occasional visitor to The Bridge. Our thoughts are with his daughter Sara and all his family.

A happier, piece of news is that we are entering the autumn/ winter theme season for the club. While we will continue to meet every Friday with the possible exception of one or two around Christmas and New Year (watch this space for news on that) there are some particular dates for your diary. These themes are entirely voluntary. If you can find a few songs to fit then that's great, if not then turn up anyway and do whatever you fancy.

• 20th October - Harvest (gathering, plenty, agriculture, countryside)
• 27th October - Halloween (All Saints, spooky, horror, etc.)
• 3rd November - Guy Fawkes / Bonfire Night (including campfire songs)
• 10th November - Remembrance (war, anti-war, etc.)
• 1st December - St Andrew (Scotland, etc.)
• 15th December - Christmas (including bah humbug)

(Songs new to the Dragon database, though not necessarily always new to the club are marked with an asterisk "*")

As usual Colin was MC and started the session, this time singing Games people play (* Joe South).

John was next up with Bob Dylan's Blind Willie McTell about the Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist of that name and the prejudice experienced by African Americans such as him in the first half of the 20th century.

Stan introduced us to Marty Robbins' Man walks among us (*).

Simon sang Leon Rosselson's song of the diggers, The world turned upside down.

Rob often takes traditional ballads and writes an alternative version of the story or one which explains missing links in the original. His riff on Long Lankin (roud 6, child 93) is Lord Weary and the mason. The linked video is entitled "Lord Murray and the mason" because a friend of Rob's persuaded him that might be less confusing, but Rob later reverted to the original title and lyric.

Chris sang the first traditional song of the evening with The three ravens (roud 5, child 26).

Roger briefly sang what I believe was an extract from Paddy McGinty's goat. It's worth noting that this song, while seeming to be Irish, was in fact written by two English music hall composers, Bert Lee and RP Weston, for an American vaudeville act performing in the UK, The Two Bobs.

Denny offered up Pretty Saro (roud 417) followed by Paul bringing the first rotation to an end with Waking dreams (roud 22620).

Colin recalled our late friend Phil by singing from his repertoire Plastic Jesus (Ed Rush, George Cromarty).

Chris sang David of the white rock (*), the English version of Dafydd y Garreg Wen with tune by Welsh harpist David Owen and (Welsh) words by John Caeiriog Hughes.

Roger followed this, referring to the jazz funerals of New Orleans and singing When the saints go marching in (* roud 13983).

Colin gave us Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's Nova Scotian mining disaster song The ballad of Springhill (*).

Chris added to her tally with The spinning wheel (* roud 17647 - John Francis Waller).

Colin sang the only song of the evening not in the YouTube playlist linked below as "a selection", and that was Graeme Miles' The Whitby girl's lament.

Stan reminded us of Elvis by singing The wonder of you (* Baker Knight), first recorded by Ray Peterson.

Rob has recently spread his net beyond his usual ballads and shanties to include some Americana, which he demonstrated to us with Poor Wayfaring stranger (* roud 3339). And finally, it also fell to Rob to finish the evening which he did with Nassau Bound (roud 15634), the original version of the well known Sloop John B from the singing of Tom Lewis.

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

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

Dog Day Evening

Ron Angel

The Dragon this week echoed to the patter of tiny feet. No, no-one gave birth; but there was a massed canine visit by Indy (new pet of Maggie and Mike), Maggie L's new whippet Freddie and grizzled folk-club veteran Gertie, to meet each other and take part in a variety of games such as Lick the Vicar and Drink Colin's Beer.

Indy, having tried hard to join in several songs, needed to take his owners home before the stroke of midnight caused any of them to change back into their secret identities; so Richard acted as MC for the second half, as well as singing Adar Mân Y Mynydd which I think roughly translates as The Small Birds That Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain [The little birds of the mountain]. And on the subject of foreign languages, Lesley performed the Miners' Lifeguard in perfect American!

Derek inevitably began by cheering people down, if that is the correct antonym, by announcing the death of pillar of Teesside folk music Ron Angel. Since your regular scribe (hands up, who guessed this is not he?) had sung Ron's Chemical Worker's Song in the past few weeks, Derek declined to do it again and confined himself to one of the shanties for the singing of which Ron will be remembered by all who had the privilege of knowing him. In this case he chose Cruising Round Yarmouth to the tune of Blow the Man Down. Firstly this caused Jan to suspect that there might be a secondary non-nautical meaning to the song, though I can't see it myself. And secondly it encouraged Richard to sing Erin Go Bragh NOT to the tune of Blow the Man Down.

We were delighted to welcome back Keith for the first time since the sad loss of his wife Pat. As always he awed the guitarists present with his precision and finger control in such pieces as The Causeway. And we also welcomed back our recent visitors Chris (Seventeen Come Sunday – strictly speaking that was her song, not her biography) and Roger who sang songs including Rhinestone Cowboy.

Paul who has heretofore confined himself to playing instrumentals, broke his duck with a song he had written called That's All I Know.

Phil amused the assembled with Plastic Jesus for which Richard and Lesley failed to trace a precise supporting biblical quotation; perhaps they were playing canny after Colin's performance of Sydney Carter's 'The vicar is a beatnik and he ought to be defrocked'. That song immediately struck home to me as one I used to hear a lot, but hadn't heard now for a very long time. Hardly had I thought that than Jan sang Jeff Buckley's Satisfied Mind (Joe "Red" Hayes and Jack Rhodes), which comes into exactly the same category.

May I end with the reminder that next week is Harvest; so please feel free to arrive bearing, for charitable purposes, anything in aid of which the fields have been ploughed and/or scattered, or money to enter the inevitable raffle for the aforementioned produce. And the following week we hope as many friends as possible will attend to commemorate the life of Pat.

Here's a selection of the songs sung during the session.

(Number of people present - 14, of which 11 performed)

Richard in charge

John Jacob Niles

Mike and Maggie were absent from this week's session as planned, so Richard was in charge. Officially there was no theme but "A song what (sic) Mike sings" seemed like a good idea, and about half of us took part.

Richard kicked off with The Holmfirth Anthem. Derek and Simon both followed on with more songs from Mike's repertoire.