Seek and ye shall find

Judith Durham in 1970

OK, so that went well didn't it. With Colin away last week I did a bit of extra publicity and... Geoff and Simon ended up serenading each other for the evening. Seriously, we had a pretty good do, with plenty of singing and a bit of chat thrown in.

Since Geoff arrived just before Simon he was called to sing first. He sang Good Hearted Woman (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson) which he said was written during a card game, inspired by Tina Turner and the abuse she suffered while married to Ike.

Both Geoff and Simon sang songs which had been recorded by The Seekers to mark the death of original lead singer Judith Durham. Geoff sang Bush girl (words by Henry Lawson) and Simon sang Morningtown ride (Malvina Reynolds).

Simon marked Colin's absence by singing a song from his repertoire: Cousin Jack (Steve Knightley).

There was a brief conversation about songs which while good aren't very nice, usually it seems in terms of misogyny. Note that we don't avoid songs which may cause offence, particularly when those songs are historical artefacts telling of past attitudes. There followed a few of these, possibly including:

• Geoff - Step it out Mary (Sean McCarthy)
• Simon - Laird of the dainty Dounby (roud 864)
• Geoff - As I roved out (roud 277, laws O17)
• Simon - No Sir no (roud 146)

Simon closed the evening with Jean Ritchie's The L&N don't stop here anymore.

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

(Number of people present - 2 of whom 2 performed)

End of an era and start of another

Last night at The New Inn Westerleigh

This report has been a long time coming since Christmas and New Year and some other commitments got in the way. It is of a session held on 16 December 2016 at The New Inn, Westerleigh. And that is an important point to start on. Our next session, on Friday 6 January 2017 will be at our new venue, The Bridge Inn, Shortwood (BS16 9NG). If you haven't been there before you can find directions and a map here. It was actually our venue from 1995 to 2014, so it is familiar to many of our regulars and visitors, who will also be aware of the excellent acoustics, so we are hoping for lots of good singing and playing at future sessions This is now our new permanent home.