Happiness is a Warm Sausage

Once again, a memorable evening at The Bell. Monks Kirby yesterday, with some fine musical performances from Sly Old Dogs and Friends and the usual robust chorus singing. With the added bonus of a  belly-busting platter of sausages and roast potatoes provided for the audience by mine host and Spoon player extraordinaire, Paco. I'll miss him and the Family when he finally retires!

   I had thought that with it being a long weekend, and some performers being at Shrewsbury Festival, it might have been a quieter than usual night. How wrong I was. Usually, as I drive to and from my village to The Monk, across Warwickshire's tortuous and deserted Northern Corniche, I meet only a moth and the occasional rabbit. En route last night, I met not only one, but TWO oncoming vehicles. In this part of Warwickshire, that is virtually a traffic jam. 

     Inside, the room was gratifyingly full. I could see that Colin, Martyn and Richard were missing from the Sly Old Dogs usual line-up, but the incomparable Dublin Legend Mr. Sean Cannon was already settled. Later my Soul Buddy John Kearney would arrive, and added to the SODs strongly traditional repertoire, this would lend an undeniably Irish theme to events as the night unfolded.

   As well as the usual regulars, I got talking to a friendly crowd of young folk who had driven all the way over from Leicester and Loughborough to sample the hospitality there.They were most impressed. One of them has already joined Nuneaton Folk Club's Facebook Page, hungry for more, and they will definitely be returning to MK.  They liked the eclectic cross-section of music and the free cuisine. ( I'd already been out for a Family Nosh-up at Turpins, on the A444, so had no more room for not even one sausage. Bloody typical!). 

      Sean was Sean, and as well as singing a few tear jerkers about the Old Country, he took us down on The Bayou with Jambilyah, and to Spain, with a song which had Paco and quite a few audience members singing along emotionally, as if their Tortillas were leaking, or their Chaps were giving them gyp.   

Sean Cannon on a shirt and with a fan at Monks Kirby last night. 

    The Dogs were in fine fettle, other than the joke telling, which elicited the usual audience groans. One of the ones John Mac told was surely handed on to him by the builders at Stonehenge? Paul Kelly and Bob Brooker treated us to both self penned  and traditional songs, and I particularly liked Nigel Ward's  instrumental segue of "Dawn Chorus/Jabet's Ash."

        John Kearney got everyone joining in with his inimitable version of "Downtown", and the "Irish Gospel"(!!)  song he often starts his own solo set with-" Come Lay Your Burden Down." Cheryl took us off to Marrakesh on the express, and bravely included a long instrumental during which you could have heard a plectrum drop. 

     Pete Willow kindly gave me the slot after Sean each time round, so no pressure there,then. I hurriedly dropped the plan to give "When I Get To The Border," a first airing, and did "John Ball" and " Shine On" instead. (Good call). For my third contribution, fellow Mac Awe John Kearney joined me, in a MoT  set favourite " All Over Now."  Given the strong Celtic flavour which was emerging, I introduced it as a Bobby O'Womack song.

     There were several highlights, but for me, The Sly Old Dog's ribald and increasingly frantic version of "Whiskey In The Jar" was probably the most memorable one. It just got faster and faster. The tables were pounding, and Paco was beginning to struggle with keeping up on Spoons, as Pete and JK's fingers became a veritable blur. When the Sods are in this kind of mood, they really are...Top Dog. Live music, well sung and expertly performed on a Sunday evening, with a large and well-fed audience. You can't beat it. 

The Pits at Bedworth

    I won't slag anyone off. But all was not as it seamed last night, as we sipped our coke and dug lots of  lyrics about Collieries. But no-one seamed to mined. And that's enough puns on a popular theme for now. I'll have no truck with that. 

     Last night saw a second entertaining night at Newdigate Club , at Bedworth Folk Club's new venue. More welcoming, more spacious, and much more friendly than the Black Bank, It was a broad cross section of people who turned up to support the Summer Big Sing there. All proceeds went towards the Bedworth Folk Festival. Eleven different acts worked through an eclectic mix of material. Malc Gurnham and Gill Gilsenan, Dave Webb, Alan Stocks, Brian Phillips, Dave Parr, Katherine Fear, Dave Fry, John Kearney, Des Patalong, Terry and Jan Wisdom and Geoff Veasey.

    John Kearney continues  to pull fresh tricks out of the hat, like a  conjurer producing a rabbit. I'd heard his Bob Marley/Traditional Irish medley before but some audience members hadn't and they took to it immediately, singing along and  chuckling in   alternate measures. This despite some  weirdly timed  hand clapping    from the irascible and very vocal Joe Roberts. Des sang the magnificent and haunting Shallow Brown which remains the saddest song about Slavery I know. Dave Parr did an instrumental and one of his racier songs. Jan Wisdom treated us to one of her own compositions,ably demonstrating that her songwriting is every bit as good as her lovely, flawless vocals. Dave Fry had me gritting my teeth over the Strawb's  “Part Of The Union.”  The audience loved it and  bayed out the chorus  lines robustly. Dave delivered it expertly and professionally. I just loathe the song and everything it stands for. Sorry, Dave!

     Katherine Fear gave us three of her songs and gave me a gratis copy of Daisybell's new eponymous CD. (  Fair enough-I coined their name!)  Katherine Included a song about Miners. There was a heavy emphasis on Mining songs throughout the evening and although this remains apt (because the Newdigate Club used to have Newdigate Colliery opposite), Coal mining is not the only industry Beduff is (or was) renowned for. Iron, Manganese, Copper and clay  were also mined, and there were stone, sand and gravel quarries in abundance. There were also several brickworks, including one next to Newdigate Colliery. Silverware, clothing  and regalia, needles, Hats and Gloves,hooters and whistles were also made in factories in the town. My Dad worked in Bayton Road, and one of his jobs was to inspect batches of components fabricated there for Harrier Jump Jets. But no-one sings songs about them. Yet...........

    I sang an old favourite from the past, The BPS version of “ Beside The Seaside.” This was all set to be on our 2008 album until “ The Bold Pirate ” knocked it down in the running order. It took longer than intended, partly because I started it at a funereal pace, partly to accommodate the lengthy choruses, and partly to field some good-natured heckling. It is a slightly amended version to the original, this, and as our version is nearly forty years old, it has also had to have modifications made over that period of time. “ The line “Rolf Harris in a Show” for example, always scanned well he but had to be edited out a few years ago. I replaced him with Orville-but then he died. It's Les Dennis at the moment.....

    Following a Summery theme, I added “ Down Our Street.” It was well received, with the choruses well sung. Although, I heard one of the older regulars muttering, “ He's missed the Bread Man out.” And that's true. I have. If I were to include all the house to house tradespeople in a song essentially about a time when business came to our homes,it would be a very long song. And where I grew up was evidently tougher than downtown Beduff. Because where I lived, only the posh people could afford a daily bread delivery-though I admit such things existed. The rest of us just went to the local corner shop. Or the Bakery!

Worthy of Worthing

Nuneaton Folk Club August 5th 2015

    
Last week's August session at NFC was a big success, with joint guests Winter Wilson  and Dragonhead (rbelow) wowing another large audience. 

Winter Wilson

Dragonhead

Plenty of excellent floor spots too, with Malc Gurnham as guest compere and Gill Gilsenan his singing partner, helping run the raffle and sell Folk Monthly magazines. Thanks to both for stepping in when I was not available. Another highlight was John Kearney's spontaneous decision to sing “ We Shall Overcome.” The audience seized on this, and the cumulative effect was apparently very moving and uplifting. On the NFC Facebook Page ( for which you have to apply for membership), and elsewhere on Facebook, there is a video clip courtesy of Sue Sanders which captures the magic of this moment.  " You had to be there," one audience member commented afterwards. John himself was knocked out by the audience reaction, but there was also a lot of retrospective enthusiastic verbal feedback. " The best audience singing I have heard in a folk club since the 60's," for example and: " It felt like the whole room was singing with a sense of togetherness and purpose." or, from Dave Wilson of Winter Wilson, " We Shall Overcome" was very special."

JK's Special moment even makes Dave Webb look angelic

Peter McParland 

Brian Phillips

   



















Peter McParland, Dipped Sheep, Brian Phillips and "Sly Old Dog" Nigel Ward ( making his NFC debut), and Thrup'nny Bits also contributed to another great night. 

Dipped Sheep were bleating good

 BBC Local Radio

    I missed the evening because I was actually double booked, having committed myself months earlier to a College Reunion in Worthing. This led to me doing one of the oddest “live” radio broadcasts I have ever experienced. From the shingle beach in Worthing, Sussex. This went out on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, who  have been very supportive to Nuneaton Folk Club, ever since it launched ten months ago. At their invitation I've previously done live interviews on the Vic Minett show, and with Phil Upton, from the bar of The Crown Inn. In the past I've done recorded interviews from The Blue Pig in Wolvey, or at home, and several other live studio broadcasts, but never ever on a beach before! 180 miles away from the event I was helping to publicise.  Our good friend at CWR Keith Wedgebury helped set this up. 

    I cannot stress too highly how helpful the BBC have been. Not just to me but to local music in general. This is PROPER local journalism, rather than the contemptuous lip service and tokenism of the so called Coventry (or Warwickshire) Telegraph, which is nowadays anything but. ( Local) Since the New Year the majority of their coverage of anything involving the Performing Arts is limited to syndicated features which you can read elsewhere. Shame on you, Trinity Mirror, for dumbing down a once-worthy newspaper thus. And God help Coventry's  bid for City of Culture if you continue with this intellectual Apartheid. The judges won't just pass judgement on how well you publicise Kasabian at The NEC. They'll be looking at the support you give to local actors, musicians, artists,painters  and writers. And finding, currently, none.