An evening of country music for not-quite-Thanksgiving: 1st December at the Dog & Badger, Medmenham

The Dog & Badger has live music on most Tuesdays. Often this is Ollie Sloan, the in-house singer-songwriter; sometimes a local jazz band.

On Tuesday 1st December, Karen, Rosie, Steve, Roger and Alan will put on an evening of country-flavoured music, starting at around 19:30. The set list will range from ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’ through to The Eagles, via some country classics.

You can just pop along for a drink (well-kept Rebellion is available), or eat from the bar or restaurant menus. Details at http://www.dogandbadger.com/.

Mr Humphries Railway revisited at The Prince Albert

Once again, we had an almost-full complement of the usual suspects and filled the pub to overflowing. We just managed to get two turns each.

Congratulations were due to David and Alison for their Silver Wedding Anniversary on Tuesday. Had we known in advance, we could have prepared some suitable material. As it was, Rosie came up with the reel Silver Spear (With Sally Gardens) in the break and Delia added the Anniversary Waltz.

Among the many highlights of the evening was a song called The Sun it Goes Down, in which David, Simon and Alison each sang a verse. They’d learned this number when they performed in Steve Heap’s production called Mr Humphries Railway, with which they toured Sweden and the south of England in 1982. I’ve been provided with a contemporary photo of some of the cast, and am open to offers not to publish it here, especially from the member dressed in the Saturday-Night-Fever-meets-Sunday-Morning-Cardigan outfit. I suspect that this number will pop up in Chesham on 8th.

Alison also sang Sally Ann along with Done With Sin and Sorrow and later Sally Rogers’ Lovely Agnes. David was surprised that I didn’t recognise his song. I think he told me it was by John Martyn, so it was probably Dive Deep. Simon led the assembled musicians in Oscar Wood’s Jig and Dark Girl Dressed in Blue.

Also digging up old material were Richard and Andy. As well as Down Where The Drunkards Roll, we heard:

• May I Rest My Mind While (I think)
• Could Not Take My Eyes Off You (usually sung by Bob)
• Still I Love Him (that I know from The Bothy Band as ‘Do You Love An Apple’)

Martin and Kerraleigh (AKA The August List) are getting more impressive all the time. This evening, they played:

• Black Night by Holly Golightly (best known to me from her cameo appearance on The White Stripes Elephant)
• Vessel in Vain by Bill Callaghan
• Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis
• Stormy Weather by Nina Nastasia

In preparation (i.e. rehearsal) for our country-flavoured gig at The Dog & Badger on 1st December, different combinations of the as-yet-unnamed 5 piece band played:

• Here In California (Kate Wolf, who’ll probably get 3 songs in our set)
• Take Me Home Country Roads (Roger has yet to get the round glasses for this)
• Lowlands
• In The Jailhouse Now
• I’ll Fly Away

Other contributions were:

• Dick: Dido Bendigo (presumably because there was a shooting or hunting group in the pub when we arrived) and Limehouse Lass
• Delia: Look What They’ve Done To My Song Ma (a hit in 1970 for Melanie)
• Jim: Oh Boys Oh, Maid of Bethnal Green
• Bob: Do You Wanna Dance, written and recorded by Bobby Freeman in 1958 (it’s rumoured that Jerry Garcia played lead guitar on this), but best known by brits of a certain age from the Cliff and the Shadows’ version in 1962, Tim Hardin’s If I Were A Carpenter
• Gerry: John Lennon’s Julia, Dougie Maclean’s Down Too Deep
• Steve: Nanci Griffith’s Gulf Coast Highway
• Rosie and me: Schottische A Bethanie
• Ian: Flying Dutchman

We have our first visit to the Dog and Badger at Medmenham next week. Please come a long to make the evening a success.

Change of venue for 25th November: Dog & Badger, Medmenham

It seems likely that The Pegasus will cease to be available to us in the relatively near future. With this in mind, our session on 25th November will be at The Dog and Badger in Medmenham with a view to making this a permanent venue if it works for us and them.

Medmenham is between Marlow and Henley on the north side of the river. The pub is on the right when coming from Marlow and has plenty of parking. Here's a map.

Do try to come along for this first evening.

David, Alison & Simon at Tudor Folk Club, Chesham on Monday 7 December

You can hear a few numbers from this terrific trio most Wednesdays with us. Having been at their last visit to Tudor Folk & Acoustic Music Club, I can heartily recommend their upcoming gig there on 7th December, starting at 8 :15pm.

Expect to hear an eclectic mix of great material.

The cost for non-members is £7.

Read more on the Tudor Folk web site.

Blog O'Rog 5

Hi everyone who might be interested ! How are you both ??

Anyway, last night, viz Wednesday the 4th November in the year of Our Lord 2009 (doesn't time fly ?), saw a small but determined (and PA-less) hard core (can I say that?) group of us gathered in the rather hot bosom of the "Belle Vue" in High Wycombe. At least, not having the paraphernalia of the PA meant that we had a bit more room in our corner; just as well we don't normally have harp or sitar players, says I.

The cast at circa 2045 comprised Dick Frost...Karen and me ...Alan & Rosie...Canalboat Jim....& Ian from Burnham. Later participants included our other John, Simon, and local student Alice, a new "find"! Anyway, Dick got us all warmed up nicely with the splendidly Francophobe "Drink Old England Dry", further contributions including "Billy Me Boy", and "Titty Fol The Day", or it could be "Titty Fal The Day"--who knows ??

Next-in-Line Jim, on this occasion, gave us Andy Cutting's "French Dance", paired with "Navvy On The Line" on mandolin. Alan & Rosie, not wanting to be outdone instrumentally, riposted (with my modest help) with the polkas "Captain Byng", "Peg Ryan", and the "Maids of Ardagh"----followed by, subliminally perhaps, all Byngs considered, the Cher song "Bang! Bang!". Ian O'Burnham then reminded us of our tenuous "folk" connections with a soulful" Greenland Whale Fishery".

At this juncture, Karen decided that we should "do something lively", most of the (admittedly) small audience of numbers almost in excess of 6 being nearly comatose, so, eager not to lose their love & support, we burst into song with "Across The Great Divide"( K Wolf). This seemed to get their attention, so I showed my extraordinary versatility by playing "The Upton Stick Dance" on tremolo harmonica. It being a busy night for me, I then accompanied Simon's melodionic "Madeleine's Waltz", a tune much used by the Jan Steen Netherlands Dance Group. By now, we had the ever-swelling audience in the palms of our hands, and Jim's very funny rendition of "The Rottenstall Annual Fair" sealed their undying loyalty.

By now able to do no wrong, we proceeded at a cracking pace, with some Mazurkas and "I'll Fly Away" (Alan, Rosie & moi again), Ian's "Drunken Blackbird"(D Behan), and Simon / myself with "The Lass of Richmond Hill" and "Belle Vue", Simon's movable feast tune that changes from venue to venue! And of course, dear Karen's recently-learned, with my accompaniment, "Long and Lonely Winter" (D Goulden, from the singing of Archie Fisher) went down rather well also ----- I can say that,'cause it's ME doing the blog!

The rest of the evening was a great success,certainly the most enjoyable for me at that venue anyway, with a real sense of "the Craic" to it, and I think Dick really enjoyed it, too. We had a visit, but no songs, alas, from a jet-lagged Helen Akitt and Glen who'd got up early to ferry her from the airport, and local Uni student Alice borrowed Alan's guitar to give us a creditable "Black Is The Colour" and, later, "Caleb Mye" (I think !) by Gillian Welsh......Alice can come again !!

Of later offerings,after the raffle ?? Well, Dick sang "Limehouse Lass", we had "Wedding Bells" and "Mary McCree" from Jim (self-penned & with a serious message); "Rakes of Kildare", "Tenpenny Bit" and "It's Too Late" were favoured by The Jackson Two; Ian sang "The Trees They Do Grow High" (always a Poplar song) and "The Dudley Boys" --- Between us, Karen & I did "Cloghinne Winds" (B Murphy), "The Rare Ould Times", and "Canal en Octobre" (F Paris), Simon offered his & Dick's composition about cross-dressing clerics, "Doris the Bishop" - set in the Six Bells, Thames, and I had a go at Les Barker's "My Futon's Gone Ron" from his book "Waiting For Dogot".

A truly SPLENDID evening was eventually brought to a dazzlingly climactic and very vocal, if not terribly musical, end,by "Our John" of the Orpheus Choir singing that old "Folk" standard " Lily The Pink" !!

Sorry if it's a bit long (as the Bishop said to, presumably, another Bishop), but A) I can't help it and B) hopefully I won't be asked to write the Blog again tee hee !!!
Roger