Farewell to Kris

Kris Kristofferson in 1978

Last week's session of Dragon Folk Club saw a welcome return for slightly more than occasional visitor Rob, and Denny brought us encouraging news of Paul after his very recent operation.

Colin started off the session with a rendition of Me and Bobby McGee, written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, no doubt in memory of the recently deceased Kristofferson who originally performed this popular song. Rob told us that while in the vicinity of Salinas, CA, which is a location mentioned in the song, he felt compelled to visit. He didn't find much there, but he will always remember a large sign proclaiming it the "Artichoke Capital of the World". According to Wikipedia that title is claimed by Castroville, but given that the two towns are less than ten miles apart, which would be considered as nothing in the USA, we'll let it go.

Simon referred to the county of his birth with John Sykes' The Lincolnshire Song.

Rob followed with The Keeper: not the traditional roud 1519, but a song written by Steve Knightley.

Denny said on her recent visit to see him in hospital, Paul had managed to sing Peggy Gordon (roud 2280), so she followed his example, asking everyone to join in in the style of a ventriloquist.

Sue was the first to add a new title to the Dragon database, perhaps in this case, but not always new to the club, with I wake up every morning with a smile on my face (* Boxcar Willie). As usual, I will mark new entries to the database with an asterisk (*).

Bob completed the first rotation with Bear Creek Blues (A P Carter).

Colin brought some jollity to the proceedings with Miles Whooton's The fishfinger song (*).

Bob has several strings to his bow, and ballads make up one of them. Drawing on that string he gave us The heir of Linne (* roud 111, child 267).

Sue sang some of her own songs, which are not available on YouTube and therefore not included in the playlist linked below from "a selection". These were: Recycled teenager, A chilly song,  and She was 73.

Denny's song, Wayhill Fair is another that eludes YouTube. It is closely related to Weyhill Fair (roud 1086) and the different spelling isn't significant. They share a tune and have similar structure, but the traditional one is purely about horses at the fair while the one sung apparently by The South Bank Grunters goes more off-piste in its descriptions of the fair.

Colin gives us Cheerily man (*). Apparently Rob was also considering singing it, and they discussed what Stan Hugill apparently described as "probably the most primitive, and one of the oldest of all these heaving and hauling songs of the sea. It was obscene to a degree and most versions have had to be camouflaged". Colin had sung a very much cleaned-up version.

Rob sang his own song, The sailor's return (Rob Winder). Denny commented on its passing similarity to Dorset is beautiful (Bob Gale) sung by The Yetties and The Wurzels. Although Rob accepted that some of his writing may be influenced by existing songs, he didn't seem to be aware of that song. Denny and Simon gave a quick rendition of the chorus to illustrate the point.

Denny sang a song not on YouTube, and that is The pickled herring man (*) by Cathy Wallis. The chorus has the man selling silver (herring) to buy gold (whisky).

Rob's next two songs were Bonnie laddie, hieland laddie (* roud 2330) and Farewell, farewell (* Richard Thompson), both of which were new to the database. Farewell, farewell was written by Thompson after Fairport Convention's van crashed on the way home from a gig in Birmingham killing his girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn and the band's drummer, Martin Lamble.

Uke player Sue sang Making love, ukulele style (Paul Weirick, Charles R Hayes), a song recorded by Dean Martin.

Colin asked Rob to finish off the evening, which he did with Hand me down my walking cane (roud 11733).

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

(Number of people present - 6 of whom 6 performed)

A mixed bag

A Lincolnshire fenland farm in 2023
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

A happy band of four met for last week's un-themed session of the Dragon Folk Club. I'm rather late writing the report this week, so I will keep it short.

First of all let's get out of the way the advert for this Friday (1 March) when the theme will be St David's Day, which it is. Of course Welsh songs, songs about Wales and the Welsh, and at a push even songs about whales are very welcome, but really anything goes as long as it's acoustic, whether that's a song, a tune, or any other sort of performance.

And don't forget St David's other patronages, which compared to the other national saints of the UK and Ireland seem to be quite thin on the ground: Pembrokeshire (in South West Wales), Naas (the county town of County Kildare in Ireland), vegetarians, and poets.

To keep this brief I will mention just some of the less-often sung of the things we heard last week. You may think some of them are less-often sung for a reason, but I hope you will agree that others are gems.

• Colin - Radio Times (Tom Lewis)
• Paul - One more pull (Ian Woods)
• Simon - Jolene (Dolly Parton)
• Colin - Old Molly Metcalfe (Jake Thackeray)
• Simon - Love is like a butterfly (Dolly Parton)
• Colin - The frog's courtship (roud 16)
• Denny - Sweet thyme (John Conolly, Pete Mundy)
• Simon - The Lincolnshire song (John Sykes)
• Colin -  The herring song (roud 128)
• Denny - Loving Hannah (roud 454)
• Colin - Ivor (roud 2570)

I'll pause there just to note that we learnt the song Ivor tells the true story of dramatist, singer and composer Ivor Novello who was sentenced to eight weeks in Wormwood Scrubbs prison, serving four of those weeks, for misusing wartime petrol coupons. An admiring fan had stolen the coupons from her employer, but the court found that Novello was also culpable. This was a serious offence under rationing laws in wartime Britain.

• Colin - The pitmen poets (Jez Lowe)
• Colin - Little Mohee (roud 273, laws H8)
• Paul - Bird on the wire (Leonard Cohen)

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session - in fact it's all 36 of the songs we sang that evening.

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

Taking a breather before the big one

It was good to have a close to quorate group of singers at last Friday's themeless Dragon Folk Club session. This week (15 December) will be our official Christmas themed singaround, so do come along with your songs of Christmas, Winterval, or Bah Humbug as appropriate to your feelings.

We are still undecided whether to have a session next week (22 December) , so if you would like to come and sing, play or otherwise perform with us (or be our audience), then please get in touch to say you are coming. Please watch this space for confirmation or cancellation.

Colin started us off, marking the fortieth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon with his song Imagine (John Lennon, Yoko Ono).

I have got carried away with other things today and I do like to get this report out on Tuesday, so I am afraid it will be very brief this week. In fact I will mention only these songs not in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below.

• Simon sang John Sykes' The Lincolnshire Song. There is a performance of the song by John's daughter Miranada Sykes on YouTube, but it is as part of a longer set, so here is a link to part a clip from that video.
• Paul sang Steve Thomason's Tracks in the snow.
• Simon's information (from mudcat) is that the version of Lord Franklin that he sang is by Les Barker, but the lyrics are quite different from the one on YouTube.
• Denny sang King of the railways (Roy Duffield)

Paul finished off the evening with Thousands or more (roud 1220).

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

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

Only slightly dodgy

We can just about cog along with three singers present and that's what we had last week. Really we need some more of you to come and swell our numbers. At least one of last week's singers won't be there this Friday so it's all the more important for you make an effort. Three just about works, five is OK, more is much better.

Colin kicked us off with Murray Lewis' Forgotten the words. Simon continued with Geordie (roud 90, child 209) and Geoff completed the first rotation with The little beggarman (roud 900).

I won't go through the whole of the evening, you can almost do that by using the "a selection" link below. There were just two songs, both sung by Simon, for which there isn't a video linkable there. The first deserves a bit of a preamble.

Geoff noted that the Doom Bar (beer from Cornwall) wasn't at its best this week. Simon recalled a recent occasion when it had been worse. Conversation continued for a while along the lines of how well beer is kept by different pubs, where you can get a cheap, well kept pint, and how some pubs don't have enough turnover of beer for particular ales which don't keep well. This conversation led Colin to sing A pub with no beer. Note that on this blog Colin's song has previously been credited to Slim Dusty who did indeed record it, but in fact it was Gordon Parsons who wrote it, adapted from a poem by Dan Sheahan (A pub without beer).

Simon immediately referred to a song written by our old friend Richard Gillion about him and the fact that he drinks Doom Bar at the club. Simon had never sung the song and didn't think he could. Later however he looked up the words which refer not only to Simon, but also to a number of songs he sings and the fact that he used to bring a bodhrán to sessions. The song in question is The dodgy Doombar and he managed to squeeze out a rendition. Don't worry, the beer is usually better than this at The Bridge Inn.

The other song with no easily link-able video, again sung by Simon, is The Lincolnshire song written by John Sykes and sung here by his daughter Miranda. The video is there on YouTube alright, but is part of a much longer performance. By the wonders of YouTube we can link an index into the video here, but not in the playlist.

It also fell to Simon to finish off the evening, which he did in his customary way with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford). It's always guaranteed to get people singing, even when there's only three, and even when, as this time, Simon's throat demands that he turn down the volume from 11 to maybe 7 or 8. Perhaps the plaster wasn't quite shaken from the wall this time - our hosts Helen and Mark might be grateful for that.

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

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

The prodigal sons

Sailing ships at Boston Dock,
Boston, Lincolnshire

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session saw the return of two singers who we haven't seen for a long time: John B and Roger who added a bit of welcome variety to proceedings. It was also pleasing to note that while he hasn't been to one of our sessions for a long time, John B obviously reads these reports. I don't think any themes emerged and I'm afraid this report is going to be brief, but as usual you can find most (in fact all but one) of the songs we sang via the "a selection" link below.

Colin was MC as usual and started us off with Jez Lowe's Morpeth Olympics.

Both Roger and John B sang their turns through the evening, but on one of Roger's turns they joined forces with Roger on harmonica and John B on drum and vocals to appropriately sing Sloop John B (roud 15634 - otherwise called H'ist up the John B's sails or The John B sails).

The only song from the evening which doesn't feature in the "a selection" link is John Sykes' The Lincolnshire Song, sung by Simon. It's not that the song doesn't appear on YouTube, but that it is just part of a longer video of John's daughter Miranda Sykes singing and YouTube doesn't allow clips to be included in playlists.

Geoff gave us a poem, which turned out to be a version of Les Barker's Disaster at sea as modified by Fred Wedlock to locate it at Portishead.

Simon finished off the evening with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 5 of whom 5 performed)

Harvest 2019

(Photo: Herry Lawford)

Last Friday was our annual Harvest theme. Thanks go to Colin for organising some nibbles, and to Jim, who was our first-timer for the evening. At the start he hid his light under a bushel before being persuaded to sing and finally get his banjo from the car. If Jim reads this, your presence was really welcomed and we hope you return very soon. It was also great to see Mike back after his spell in hospital.

Due to some business I had to do earlier in the week I have not got round to adding detail to this report until now (Thursday). I't's way too late to be writing a full report of last week's session so I will just touch on two things.