April Fools, Mothering Sunday and Lady Day 2019

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

This Friday's session (3 April) will have no theme. Colin, our usual MC, will not be present and his place will be taken by Simon. In recognition of this we will declare open season on Colin's repertoire, so please feel free to look back through our blog reports and pick songs he has sung in the past for you to repeat this week. If you don't fancy that then you are at liberty to sing, play, recite or otherwise perform anything you like as long as its acoustic.

Back to last week, Colin was present and MCed. He started us off obliquely on the Mothering Sunday theme. You may know that as well as your own mother, Mothering Sunday is about the church where you were baptised, your mother church, well Colin went one stage further with The Mother Country, which was written down by Benjamin Franklin though it is not known whether he actually composed it.

The stories behind the songs

Coffee Culture (photo: Simon Meeds)

Last Friday some flyers for Whitby Folk Week had arrived, so the first part of the evening involved a communal inspection of the leaflet. It seemed that many on the long list of performers were from the folk old guard, and so several stories, both fond and bitter were told. I won't recount any here for fear of accusations of libel.

The session proper was MCed by Colin who kicked off with Captain Coulston (Roud 1695).

The previous week's discussion of Eniskillen/Inniskilling Dragoon (Tommy Makem [this version], Roud 2185) was continued by Geoff. While I don't claim Wikipedia to be the fount of all knowledge, this article gives a little more information which seems plausible. And yes, Tommy Makem called the version in the linked video Fare Thee Well Enniskillen and refashioned it to describe the Peninsular War.

Should I sing this?

Cotton Bales, Savanna, Georgia

It was almost two weeks ago that the Dragon Folk Club last met. Last week was a fallow Friday for us and this is the somewhat belated report of the session from the previous week. Seven was a decent turn-out for us in recent weeks and it was good to see Richard for the second time recently (not Richard G, who has left the area but Richard who is apparently a regular at Folk Around Fishponds and is known to Colin from that club).

The parish notices, as placed in the previous short blog post involve a number of themed nights coming up, so you are encouraged mainly to come and be part of the fun, but if possible to dig out some songs and tunes to match the themes:

• 20 October - Session with no theme
• 27 October - Halloween session
• 3 November - Campfire, Guy Fawkes, etc.
• 10 November - Remembrance

New Faces for May

Photo: Nikki T

I often say how great a session was in the report and I always mean it but last week was rather special. At the beginning of the evening we assembled as seven regulars, which would have been quite respectable but then a trickle of people started to file into our room, finally making up seven members of the Island Folk Choir. We were very pleased that as well as sharing some of their group singing, several members performed solo and in small groups.

As usual, Colin was MC and he started off the evening and the theme of "May" by singing Pleasant Month Of May (Roud 153); all of Colin's songs of the evening had May connections, however tenuous.