Knock knock

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was another great session at the Dragon Folk Club last week. We were back to reasonable strength in numbers with seven people present and all singing. There was no theme which left the field wide open.

Speaking of themes, this Friday's session (23rd January) will be our Burns' Night special (though Rabbie's actual day is Sunday), so bring your songs written or collected by Robert Burns, general Scottish songs, or anything you can vaguely link (I half-jokingly suggested songs about fire). Failing that, remember that our themes are always optional, just a bit of fun, so the most important thing is to turn up to sing, play, listen and chat - or whichever subset of those is your fancy.

Back to last week, Colin was MC and started the ball rolling with In these hard times (roud 23324 - RP Weston, Fred Barnes).

Simon delayed his planned first song and instead went for Les Barker's poem Have you got any news of the iceberg.

Roger introduced us to his self-penned song Can't be doing this any more (*#Roger Stanleigh).

Denny sang Poverty Knock (roud 3491 - Tommy Daniel). I always knew that there were stories to tell around this song, but I've done a bit more research.

Tommy Daniel was a 5ft tall weaver from Batley, although he had other jobs during his working life. He was born around 1890, started work aged 11, and died in 1970. He is variously credited with writing, re-creating or collecting the song. Piecing together the stories of various individuals who knew him, knew weaving, or simply knew the area, anecdotally the song had been in existence in some form since at least the 1920s.

Tommy himself wrote: "This work song dates back to the early Dobby power looms. Owing to low wages and the slow dreary 'knock-ity knock' sound of the looms, weavers were called 'Poverty Knockers'."

According to Wikipedia, Dobby looms first appeared around 1843, roughly 40 years after Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard device that can be mounted atop a loom to lift the individual heddles and warp threads. The word dobby is a corruption of "draw boy," which refers to the weaver's helpers who used to control the warp thread by pulling on draw threads.

It seems that Tommy may have collected some verses of the song, edited out others that he thought too risqué, and maybe written or "recreated" some more. He sang various verses at different times and I'm sure I've heard a story that claimed he would come up with a new verse and say that he had recently "found" it somewhere.

Whatever the case, it's a great song to sing, and get people singing along. Apparently Tommy required the audience to do a tap-tap after "poverty knock".

Paul's first song of the evening was Fathom the bowl (roud 880).

Sue sang the Crawdad song (roud 4853) and Bob completed the first rotation with The last ride (Robert Halcomb, Ted Daffan).

Apart from Roger's "Can't be doing this any more" which has already been mentioned there were three more songs not found on YouTube and therefore not in the playlist linked from "a selection" below:

• Sue's own A chilly song (# Sue Lonsdale) written specifically for the Dragon Folk Club - the heating's now working, but best to still bring warm clothing at this time of year
• Colin - My favourite things (*#), which is of course a parody of My favourite things (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II). OK, my pedantry forced me to use the original Mary Martin performance from the Broadway show. Here is the Julie Andrews film performance you were all expecting.
• Roger - Together we fight (#Roger Stanleigh)

Paul finished the session off appropriately with the Farewell shanty. Mervyn Vincent from St. Issy and Alan Molyneux from Plymouth are largely responsible for the revival of this West Country shanty. Mervyn found it in an old book on boat-building and it later served as the closing song at Alan’s Breakwater Club in Plymouth.

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

(Number of people present - 7 of whom 7 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no 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 (#).

Blood and Roses

(Photo: webentwicklerin)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session continued the trend of eclectic songs and of meeting new and old friends. Notably, we saw the return to the club of old friend Roger who came with occasional visitor John. Roger said he would try to persuade his wife Chris along next time; it would be excellent to see and hear Chris again. We also had an unexpected and welcome visitor, but more of her later.

Your scribe wasn't around at the very beginning of the session, so please forgive any slight inaccuracies. Denny started things off with Young Banker (roud 3321), which Paul followed with the Ballad of Cursed Anna (Jonathan Kelly).

Sue gave us (Haywire Mac) Harry McClintock's Big Rock Candy Mountain (roud 6969) and Bob sang Sweet Little Liza (Dick van Altena). The latter was the first new song of the evening for the Dragon database. As usual this doesn't mean it definitely hasn't been sung at the club before, but that it probably hasn't been recorded in this blog.

Colin's first of the evening was The Greenside Wakes Song (roud 4585). Not only is is new to the database, but nowhere to be found on YouTube (at least not as a song), and therefore it is not in the "a selection" playlist linked below. The only song of the evening which is missing.

John B fittingly gave us Sloop John B (roud 15634) with accompaniment from Roger and singing from all assembled. Meanwhile, Roger's turn brought Ralph McTell's Streets of London.

Simon completed the first round with Roger Whittaker's geographically inaccurate Durham Town. A boy sitting by the river in Durham would be by the River Wear and not the Tyne. How should South African Roger know?

Denny quickly picked up on that and made a pairing with The Water of Tyne (roud 1364), the third song new to the database that evening.

Paul also brought a new song to the party with Seven Virgins (roud 127), from the singing of Norma Waterson.

The new songs for the database were coming thick and fast when Bob sang The Last Ride, written by Robert Halcomb and Ted Daffan, and made famous by Hank Snow.

John had found a new song from Glacia Robinson in the form of Survivor.

Paul got us all singing along to Blood Red Roses (roud 931) which AL Lloyd suggested might be from the early 19th century, but the chorus at least of which Bert himself seems to have brought in possibly with some standard shanty verses.

Bob shook us all up with I knew the bride when she used to rock'n'roll (Nick Lowe) - another new song to the database.

Paul revisited his rendition of Alex Glasgow's Close the Coalhouse Door from the previous week for Bob's benefit since he had been absent.

John was Knockin' on Heaven's Door, but not with the straight Bob Dylan version, rather with words by Ted Christopher relating to the 1996 Dunblane Massacre where in an incident unusual in the UK 16 pupils and one teacher were killed and 15 were injured at a primary school. The man with the gun also shot himself dead. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history. It resulted in the private ownership of most handguns within Great Britain being made illegal with few exceptions.

It was Denny who introduced us to A Mon Like Thee which was written by Edmund Hill from St Helens in Merseyside, formerly Lancashire.

It was around about this time that the door opened and there stood Allie, a pub regular who some of us have come to know in passing and have regularly encouraged to join us for the singing. She declared that she had been standing outside the door for some time and was enjoying the music. We tried again to encourage her to enter and while she did not, she stood on the threshold and sang a creditable performance of Here Come the Navvies, written by Ian Campbell. I hope we see and hear more of Allie in the future. She was about to head into singing the Lincolnshire Poacher (roud 299, laws L14), but in the end disappeared off down the corridor.

The last "new" song of the evening was John's singing of Farewell Angelina (Bob Dylan) before Simon brought the session to a close with When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

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