Last updated: 05 May 2008
| May 2008 | 'May I have the pleasure?' | Pete B | 282 |
| April 2008 | 'Elements' | Steve & Maureen | 281 |
| March 2008 | 'Pub names' | Sue | 280 |
| February 2008 | 'Health & Happiness' | Peter M | 279 |
| January 2008 | 'Names' | Des & Debbie | 278 |
Many of the regulars of Harbury Folk Club were up at 5:00am on the morning of May 1st to take part in or watch the dawn dance at Chesterton Windmill. This was to celebrate the start of the traditional Morris dancing season. I was therefore expecting the folk club later that day to be a somewhat subdued and sleepy event. I was wrong.
Because of the date, I chose “May I have the Pleasure” as a theme, and the Band of Folk opened the evening very aptly with a rendition of the tunes “Sweets of May” and “Pleasures of the Town”.
The evening continued with a wonderful selection of music and songs presented by 13 different performers. Subjects included the month of May, “may” as in request, and several on pleasure, some of which were a little dubious in content! For a complete list of who sang what, see below.
Throughout the evening everyone seemed to be on form and there were many particularly memorable items. Among these was a beautiful song written specially for the occasion and performed by the Harvesters entitled “May I have the Pleasure”, and Rik Middleton’s song about May 1st being the start of certain al fresco pursuits of an amorous nature, further details of which cannot be divulged for reasons of censorship!
Many thanks to all who took part and the audience, all of whom kept awake despite sleep deprivation, and provided a good atmosphere. Thanks also to those who contributed to the raffle which raised £36.00 for Christian Aid.
Who Did What
Band of Folk: “Sweets of May”, “Pleasures of the Town”
Pete and Liz: “Isle of Eigg”
One Night Stand: “As I walked out One May Morning”, “Sovay Sovay”
Peter McDonald: “Laundro Loverette”, “Prickle Eye Bush”
Stuart: “Oh You are a Mucky Kid”, “In the Station in the City”
Rik Middleton: “A way hey, it’s the First of May”, “She”
Keith Donnelly: “Dog Dialogue”, “I fell in Love with Voldemort”
Folk Club Choir: “Linden Lea”, “Now is the Month of Maying”
The Harvesters: “May I Have the Pleasure”, "May Song"
Martin Day: “Music of Time”, “In Praise of Wine”
Ron Shuttleworth: “Wife of a Mummer”, “Election”
Des Patalong:
“Then to the Maypole”,
“Cuckoo's Nest”
Ted Crum: “The Wanton Seed”, “Have some Madeira my Dear”
Pete Bones: “Trunch Alphabet Song”
Ron Shuttleworth: “Car Had Body Rot”
Stuart: “Sweet Nell”
Des Patalong: “So Green as the Leaves”
Harvesters: “I’m Standing in the cupboard”
Ted Crum: “If you want to find a Colonel”
Followed by informal music session
Peter Bones
The theme for the evening was “Elements” – the rain kept away and the temperature rose as the evening went on so we had to open the back doors to allow the elements in to cool us all down.
Maureen and Janny opened the evening with a Beth Nielsen Chapman number called “The Flame”. Janny held her composure and was able to complete the song without getting all emotional as the words are very moving. Ron reminded us it was an appropriate number to sing with all the hoo-ha around the impending arrival of the Olympic Flame
Summer gave us two songs about what women got up to when their sailor husbands were at sea – she would not condone their behaviour, but someone wondered if Jim was ever a sailor as Summer sang them both so well. The first song mentioned how the wife had other men on board (read into that what you will) with the wind and rain helping their return and the second song had the women twiddling their twiddler!!
Ron turned on his magic lantern and in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan gave us a rendition of the Chemical Element Table to the tune of Modern Major General. This was followed by a reminder that it was St George’s day in 3 weeks time and so we honoured him with a tale of the Knights of the Round Table and all joined in the chorus of “George is for England”.
Peter Bones described his song as a “delicate confusion” and sang Les Barker’s “The Element of Administerium” – we all associated the song’s intent with our local Council!! Liz and Peter then sang the Ralph McTell song “Weather the Storm”. Des proudly displayed his new T-shirt that had a representation of Air and Water on the front and Fire and Molten Earth on the back. Des sang the tale of the Alabama Keel which was made in Birkenhead and sank in ’64 and, to commemorate Anzac day, we then heard the sad and very moving “Waltzing Matilda” anthem. Des also made mention of his son’s 22nd birthday which lead to a discussion on birthdays later in the evening.
Sue and Ted closed the first half with “Crazy Man Michael” with Ted playing some superb harmonica and then Ted took us back to our youth and the days of radio by singing the Gas Man song, a song about the woes of poor workmanship, the division of labour and the cycle of everyday life!!
Before the second half got underway, we had to celebrate Jim’s 55th birthday and we had a debate about the number of people born 9 months after the traditional 2 week factory shut down. We discovered that April and May are the most popular months for giving birth and we learnt that Sue Hartland’s parents seemed to have made the most of the “Birmingham Fortnight” as she and her brothers were all born around the same time (different years of course).
The second half began with Janny and Maureen singing a Threlfall Sisters song “the Banks of Allen Water” and then we had the surprise of the evening when Mike Jerome and Debbie made their debut. Mike is a pupil of Ian Hartland for playing the guitar and he carpeted us all with his confident playing as he supported Debbie who sang “Fields of Gold” – they must return!!. Stuart had to apologise in advance for the bad language in his song about being rained off and contented for £4 a day and he followed this with “Across the Valley and Over the Hills”.
Peter McDonald apologised for his cold before singing a poem that he had turned into a song about “AFEW”, Air, Fire, Earth and Water and followed this with Paul Metsers’ “Farewell to the Gold” which is set in New Zealand. Peter Mason then performed the “Chemical Workers song” and then gave us an English Cowboy song who took 23 shots to bring 5 men down. Sue and Ian Hartland closed the second half with “Soldiers of Fortune” and “Still Waters”, a song about what happened to old canals.
We had a short third half with Maureen and Janny singing “ ’Twas on one April morning”, Peter Bones told us the sad tale of how 3 score boys and 10 were lost from Grimsby Town, Sue and Ian gave a great rendition of “To the Ends of the Earth” to which we were all able to join in with the chorus and, as is tradition with our turn in hosting the Folk Club, we asked Des to close the evening with something we could all join in with. He didn’t let us down as he told us of how going out in the elements can kill you from exposure.
The raffle raised £45 which was donated in support Ian Hartland’s run in the London Marathon to the British Heart Foundation. (Sue Hartland didn’t win the raffle again).
Next month's Folk Club is on Thursday 1st May, hosted by Peter Bones when the theme will be “May I have the Pleasure?”.
Steve & Maureen Darby
I selected a theme for the March Folk Club that I thought most performers would be experts at – Pub Names! I was right, every artist managed to stick to the theme.
Contributions in the first half came from The Harvesters, Maureen & Janny, Stuart, Summer, who managed to mention 3 Pub names without even realising it, Des, Liz & Pete and Dan & Susie. Pubs mentioned were The Man in the Moon, The Ship, The Shakespeare, The Crown, The Swallow, The Nightly, The Railway, The Barn, The Farmer’s Arms, The Butcher’s Arms The Rainbow, The Windmill, The Dog, and finally, The Admiral Benbow beautifully performed by The Bones family.
The second half opened with Band of Folk who managed to include The Star & Garter and The Black Buoy. Danansooz followed with Dark Eyed Sailor and The Whitby Maid. Pete Grassby was next followed by Ted & Sue who did a great version of Our Captain Cried All Hands then came Rick who got us all singing with The Robin Adair. Martin finished the second half with The Kings & Queens of England, that’s a great song! Pubs mentioned were The Cottage, The Sunrise, The Craftsman, The Station, The Pilgrim, The Captain’s Table, The Poacher, Drops of Ale and General Wolfe.
We had a short third half, Ron drank the old pub dry, Debbie sang Liverpool Lullaby, Stuart followed and Martin closed the evening. Pubs mentioned were The Two Boats, The Cocked Hat, The Fitter’s Arms, The Crown and The Knotty Ash.
The raffle raised £50 which is boosting Ian’s sponsor money for The British Heart Foundation. Did you know he’s running in The London Marathon?
Next month’s theme is The Elements and the evening will be hosted by Steve & Maureen.
If you want a seat then come early, see you then.
Sue Hartland
At the 279th Folk Club on February 7th, I tried to generate a mood of optimism with the theme of ‘Health and Happiness’. The theme inspired a surprisingly large range of topics, not all of them relevant! We got off to a promising start with the room virtually full by 8:15pm and the singers list nearly at full capacity at that time.
I got the first half under way with an exhortation to the “Hard Cheese of Old England” then Summer took us back to the happy days of “Woodstock” while wearing her “Fine Felt Hat”. Stuart was in a philosophical mood with “Wishes for Fishes” while Janny and Maureen were emulating the Everly Brothers with “Bye, Bye, Love”. Rik presented a song by that well-known folk singer, Barbra Streisand, “Clear sailing from now on”, and the Harvesters concluded the first half with the most appropriate “Keep on the sunny side of life”, featuring Sue’s dazzling footwork. It struck me that the first half had been more like a variety show than a folk club!
The second half had an unpleasant start when Sue, Janny, Maureen and Celia abused me with Les Barker’s offensive song “Don’t play me your concertina”. The squeeze-box players got their own back when the Band of Folk squeezed on to the ‘stage’. We played some jolly tunes on a variety of squeezing, scraping and plucking instruments, including “Harper’s Frolic and “Bonny Kate” which sound happy enough to me. Martin was up next with an unusual song about a slogan competition, Keith (in a sombre mood) sang a contemporary shanty that he wrote for his dad and Pete & Liz invited us to “Come by the hills”.
The third half featured yet more performers who had been patiently waiting most of the evening. Ted and Sue sang about “The Fortune Teller”, Debbie read two of her own, very personal, poems and young Neal Pointon returned, after his remarkable debut last month, to play some more fiddle tunes. Des got us all singing along on “While we are together”, Peter Mason treated us to a poignant Eric Bogle song, “Rosie”, and Ron finished the evening for us, as only he can, with “I’m glad I’m a gladiator”. Smiles all round.
The raffle raised £47 and the proceeds were split between the Alzheimer’s Society and Cancer Research UK.
The next session of Harbury Folk Club on March 6th will be run by Sue and the theme is ‘Pub Names’. What a great idea!
Peter McDonald
The January club was the first time that Debbie was officially involved as MC, but her voice was such that she didn’t feel she wanted to perform and observed the proceedings to learn for the future. She did, however, do sterling work during the intervals to raise £59.10 for “The Salvation Army” and knew what number the club had got up to as well having done her homework. I’ve never been quite sure how the odd pennies arrive when the tickets are sold at a pound strip but it seems to be a feature of the sessions I’ve been involved in.
Another feature is that I’ve always tried to find a link between the charity and the theme for the evening, though how long I’m going to manage this is debatable. This evening, however, I was able to extend our knowledge of the Army by reminding the club of their tracing service and ability to act as third party mediators for people who have split from their families for whatever reason and hence the link to the theme for the night “Names”. Both the theme and the charity were chosen by Debbie who also undertook to take the collection down the local headquarters in Leamington Spa. The Salvation Army do have a website where if you are interested you can learn more.
http://www1.salvationarmy.org.uk/uki/www_uki.nsf
This evening we were joined by the exceptional talents of Summer, Rick, Sue and Ted Crum, Peter McDonald, and in the first section the audience depleted as the Harbury Folk Club Choir closed before the interval. This was the first occasion during the evening when there seemed to be fewer audience than performers.
In the second section of the evening we heard from the equally exceptional talents of The Harvesters, Will Pound, Ron, Neal Pointon and Ruth before the audience again diminished to allow The Band of Folk to take centre stage.
Now all of these performers give excellent value and tonight was no exception. However, I am constantly envious of all of our musicians having never applied myself seriously enough to have learned how to play. I’m astounded by what some of our younger talents are able to do with their instruments. In the second section of the evening Will Pound was ably supported by Ted who claimed he was terrified as he walked back to his seat for a drink, but Ted is a consummate professional who given a couple of chords to play with during the interval seemed to quite enjoy himself.
Neal Pointon is a young man who claimed his father’s SatNav got him to the club. I think his dad took him home again. However, he wowed the club with his fiddle playing and we all hope he will return to the club again school, homework and his dad’s SatNav permitting. He reprised in the third section with a duo with Will that they worked out between them during the interval and thus closed the evening together. They both also did solo spots in the third half and we heard again from Ron, Ruth and Ted, I think, but at this stage it seems I’d stopped taking notes. Neal has a YouTube site where Peter McDonald tells me there is now a video of his appearance at Harbury among many others but I’ve not seen this and don’t have the link though Peter is welcome to add this to this report [Ed.- see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-coJgL8lunM].
I know I’ve gone on about the musicians who came this evening and that is because of envy. However, I’m also envious of people with beautiful voices and it was a pleasure and tonic to introduce Ruth making one of her visits to the club. She comes to the club far too infrequently in my opinion (but her job takes her out of the area) and as I’d said at a previous themed night “Favourites”, she is certainly one of my favourites.
My thanks to Debbie for doing the work on the raffle and when she gets her voice back we’ll probably mix and match roles in the future. She can take notes then. My thanks also to all the artists who made the evening so enjoyable and maintained the theme so excellently. The theme for February is “Health and Happiness” hosted by Peter McDonald.
Des Patalong