Songs, readings and jokes

Three men walked into a bar... [they are not the folk club]
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session saw two visitors: Mark from Derbyshire returned a year after his first appearance, and Chris S, now from the Isle of Man, came along after an absence of six years. Chris, who usually sings with a shanty group, gave us a couple of songs but otherwise read the words of songs as poems, showing that pretty much anything goes as long as it's acoustic. In fact as if to drive the point home, regular non-performer Hazel was persuaded to tell us some of her jokes.

Colin, in the MC's seat, kicked us off with Cyril Tawney's That's what it's like in the navy (#). Apart from Hazel's jokes, which I won't enumerate, thre rest of the performances are all represented in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below.

Mark gave us Don McLean's version of Mountains of Mourne (Percy French).

Heather reminded us of the work of the multi-talented Victoria Wood with her song Saturday night (*). 

Simon sang Tom Paine's bones (Graham Moore) and Chris S finished off the first rotation with The last shanty (Tom Lewis).

The remaining songs which were new to the Dragon database were:

• Colin - Life gets tee-just don't it (*  Carson Robison)
• Mark - It's a champion life (* Jez Lowe)
• Chris S - When the old dun cow caught fire (* roud 5323)
• Colin - John Henry (* roud 790)
• Mark - Tip o' Derwent (* Gerald Short)
• Chris S - It was a ship I saw (*) - an English translation of the Manx Gaelic She Lhong Honnick Mee
• Chris S - The gardens of Sampson and Beasley (* Thomas Lauderdale, China Forbes)
• Mark - American pie (* Don McLean)

In the end Mark was asked to finish the session which he did by singing John Tams' Cider with Rosie. 

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 not 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 (#).

Somewhat nautical

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

We are still on low numbers but at least we now have a good idea of why our other core members are absent at the moment and hope to see them in the next few weeks. In the meantime newcomers and visitors would be very welcome to join us.

I'll keep the report short to reflect the reduced number of singers.

MC Colin started us off with That's What It's Like In The Navy written by Cyril Tawney, a songwriter he returned to later in the evening with Chicken on a Raft. Chicken on a raft is naval slang for a fried egg on toast.

Simon kept it nautical with Ian "Nobby" Dye's Welsh Back Quay as did Mike with Johnny Come Down to Hilo.

The second round started with Colin singing Coaly Tyne (Roud V21088) which prompted Simon to give us Mark Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia ("Far away from the coaly Tyne"). Mike followed up with When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Roud 6673), which he said has been used as a shanty.

We continued, not always in a nautical vein until the evening was rounded off by Simon singing Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner.

The following evening Simon and Colin (dubbed "The Wreckers") joined Mike and two of his fellow Bristol Shantymen as an ad hoc chorus for an enjoyable evening of shanty singing at Tormarton.

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

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

Civil rights, the sea and rovin'

Joseph Taylor

This week it was Steve G who set himself a personal theme, and it was centred around the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. His songs were also all by Bob Dylan. The first was Oxford Town. He followed that with Only a pawn in their game, about the death of black activist, Medgar Evers. Steve's third song was The lonesome death of Hattie Carroll, which gives a generally factual account of the killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll by William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger.