July 2010

The month started with a Performers’ Night which brought some new faces and old friends, some in a different line-up. The first newcomers were Phil & Ann from the Stourbridge area who did a couple of Simon & Garfunkel songs, little heard these days: “April Come She Will” and “Leaves That Are Green”. Later they also did a spot of Buddy Holly in the form of “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”. The traditional side of the music was well represented, by some shanties from Ralph and others from Jason, including “Saucy

Sailor”.   A couple of years ago, Ninepenny Marl had been the guests at the club but sadly nowadays Linda is not well enough to perform so the group has become a three-piece, calling themselves, appropriately, Thrup’nny Bits. They did “Jolly Brooman” (about an Elizabethan house of ill-repute) and the (very) old song “Sumer is icumin in”, with lyrics in Middle English!

    There was some good audience participation with the songs chosen by Dave Fry - “Rose Of Alandale” and by John Rowan - “Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire”.

Claret - Tim, Sandra & Brian

The final newcomers were Claret who run the Chequemates

club near Tamworth on Thursdays. Their instrument line-up varied but included guitar, accordion, recorder, flute and bass guitar. They did “Silver Dagger” (a song associated with Joan Baez) and another of those songs you don’t hear much anymore, “The Mingulay Boat Song”. It was a busy, varied and very enjoyable night - just what you’d expect!

And what can be said of the next Beatles Night on 12th July! It began as the famous Beatle album of 1967 began, with Martin, Val, Norman, Dave & Eleanor becoming “Sergeant Pepper’s Only Folk Club Band” while Jonathan took on the role of Billy Shears/Ringo for “With A Little Help From My Friends”. Norman was MC and sprinkled some Beatle facts and anecdotes between the songs.  Most of the titles you’d expect were represented, along with some very surprising ones and unusual versions. There was “The Long And Winding Road” on the melodeon from Rik Middleton and then “Across The Universe” as a banjo instrumental from Jonathan. As you might expect, strangest of all was Keith Donnelly who did “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” (in the style of Billy Connolly’s version on George Martin’s “tribute” album “In My Life”) introduced by a turtle puppet as a ventriloquist’s dummy (honest…) He followed that with an attempt to play “Yellow Submarine” as a didgeridoo solo… (A photo of that exists unless Keith has come up with the money...

Martin, Norman & Val - complete with wheel brace

One of the more unusual instruments employed during the night was a wheel brace, hit at the appropriate moments during “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. Less well known numbers came from Laura who chose “Ain’t She Sweet” (one of The Beatles Hamburg recordings) as well as a version of “All My Loving” to ukulele accompaniment; Hannah Tobin picked “In Spite Of All The Danger”, a song which the group had recorded back in 1958 in Liverpool and which only surfaced on the Anthology 1 CD, while

Chris Walmsley took on the “Golden Slumbers” medley from “Abbey Road”. There had to be a version of “Here, There & Everywhere” and Dick Woodhouse obliged; Ann & Phil (returning from their debut last week) chose “Nowhere Man” as one of their songs. Dave Fry gave us his “dramatic” performance of “Hard Day’s Night” in the Peter Sellers manner. He also provided vocals while Martin and John played “Norwegian Wood” and for the evening closer “Hey Jude”. The display of posters, LPs, books and other memorabilia helped create the atmosphere along with a huge amount of audience participation, since almost all of the songs were very well known. The evening reflected the wide range of versions there have been of Beatle song over the years, showing how  they work especially well with folk instruments.  Many thanks to all who took part and made it such a hugely enjoyable night - so good it probably can’t be repeated.

From one special night to another - the following week, 19th July, was the

first ever Triple Bill to kick off the week of Warwick Folk Festival. The Tindalls

were first on giving a preview of their Cropredy set - the mixture we’ve come to expect of excellent harmony singing and well-crafted musicianship.  The lead

vocals are shared around, Sarah taking “Falling Star” by Karla Bonoff, Paula had the Stevie Nicks song “Landslide” while Kathryn chose her favourite, “True Colours” by Cyndi Lauper.  They have the kind of rapport only found in real family groups - it was good to hear them on the intimate surroundings of Warwick Folk Club before the larger arena of the Fairport festival at the end of August.

The Tindalls: Sarah, Paula, Kathryn and Stuart

Following them were Pete Smith and Paul Martin - making sounds on

guitars that are hard to believe are produced by only two pairs of hands. Not only that, there’s humour in the music as well as the chat in between - somehow

“I Got Rhythm” manages to include a quote from “Meet The Flintstones” and a bit of the Benny Hill “chase” music (“Yaketty Sax”) gets into “Tiger Rag”. It may have been ”a token bit of  folk music” but one of the more affecting pieces was “Dance to Your Daddy”. The more languid side of their music was shown by the ever popular Django Reinhardt number “Nuages” while the closer was. as always an amazing piece “Music For A Found Harmonium” by Simon Jeffs of The Penguin Café Orchestra. The applause, as always, was long and loud for this pair of

guitar maestros.

    The evening was finished off by Keith Donnelly with his special guest Anna Ryder - they last played together in 2002.  They alternated their own songs, Anna doing a new one in 1930’s style called “My, My, My” - “You broke my heart truly when you spoke to me cruelly...”.  There was some sympathetic accordion accompaniment from Anna to Keith’s “My Sister And Laura  And Me” followed by some inimitable KD humour in the form of Polar Bear Theatre - hard to describe: best to look at the picture... Another bit of interesting accompaniment came in the form of a drum called a kolshi played by Anna during Keith’s atmospheric song “Me And The Moon And The Foxes”. They finished with a song which could be

Keith’s theme tune - “A Little Bit Of Madness Keeps You Sane”. So ended a tremendous night: three top line acts for the price of one - what more could you possibly want??

Keith Donnelly - Polar Bear Theatre

The club was open as usual during the weekend of the Warwick Folk Festival, playing host to some of the guests and providing an opportunity for visiting singers to participate. The last Performers’ Night of the season on the following Monday was very well attended, featuring most of the regulars, and some who are becoming regulars. Val as MC first introduced Norman, who along with Dave Fry, did their “tribute” to “The Elderly Brothers” with “Crying In The Rain”.  Norman  then gave the first performance of a setting he’d written of the words of William Blake “Love to faults is always blind”.  “New regulars” Phil and Ann took the parts of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to do “Please Read The Letter” followed by Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Occasional regular Alan Richardson showed it was nearly holiday time with a song which went “Sun, sand, sea sex and beer: on our Corfu getaway...”

Phil and Ann

     The usual mixture continued with some pop oldies from Wendy & Tony (“Sunny Afternoon”); originals from Fraser and some unaccompanied traditional material from Maggie Coleman. One of the songs in the second half which stood out was from Carole Gillespie with “The Ballad Of The Shape Of Things” - there was some debate about who wrote it but the answer appears to be Sheldon Harnick, who co-wrote “Fiddler On The Roof”!

“Rectangular is the hotel door my true love tried to sneak through...”

The evening finished with a set of tunes from Martin & Val, joined by

guitars, tambourines and ukuleles of previous performers. So ended the night and with it the seven month season - the club now takes the annual August break: we’ll all be back in September with more fantastic folk entertainment. Hope you’ll be there too!