Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club

Although without Rosie this week and Alan only attending part of the evening we were very pleased to welcome back David whose finger is now better and we were pleased to hear that his guitar playing doesn't seem to have suffered.

Tunes this week were: Scantesta No 2 on harmonica accompanied by David on guitar, and an unknown tune on guitar that he used to play with Eddy & Amanda, and The Blue Eyed Stranger from Roger, The Glendy Burke, Stephen Foster The Irish Lass and West Wind from David on guitar, My Darling Asleep, Lord Inchiquin, The Mummer's Gig from Alan on mandolin, and various from Dave on melodeon including the 3 Around 3 set.

Some of the songs accompanied by guitar were: the lovely Fair maids of February (Robin Dransfield) from David, Sun Coming over the Hill and My Man from Karen & Steve, Every Once in a While from Steve, the lovely new song – Let Smiling Be Your Banner, plus The Trawling, and Smuggler's Moon from Dave.

Unaccompanied songs were: Bold Benjamin, The Braes of Skkrene, Bring Us A Barrell from Dick, and When First I Came to Caledonia from Steve.

The evening was finished off with some 60s numbers that everyone joined in with: You Can Close Your Eyes and The Times They Are A Changing led by Steve and Catch The Wind led by Karen & Roger.

A highly enjoyable evening. Next week is at The Old Ship, Cadmore End.

Finally, we have been asked to help provide some Irish Music for St Patrick's Night at The Horse and Groom, New St, Henley, on Saturday 15th March. Please let us know if you want to come along and join us then for Irish tunes and songs – the livelier the better though the odd quiet one acceptable to give us a rest!

What a lovely relaxed and friendly evening this was, and ew even had some customers at the bar who listened a bit. The evening started off with Young Collins, ably led by Dave on melodeon, Roger on guitar and various people with shaky eggs. Other tunes throughout the evening were (excuse spellings) - Galival & Dr Faustous Tumblers, plus some tunes during the break whose names I missed.

Delia and Stuart gave us a lovely duet - The Blue Muslin which they appeared to enjoy singing. Dave gave us the cheerful "Weekend's Coming" (which always makes me want to travel off to the seaside) and his lovely Village Life.

Patrick gave us a tour of the world with songs of his experiences abroad - Donkey Bypass, Brazil Blues, and White Women in a Brown World. He also entertained us with stories of some of his experiences, including eating locust legs in custard after being inudated with a swarm of them in Africa. One particular tale was not quite fit for publication - as were some of the jokes that Dave and Roger treated us to! Patrick certainly deserved to win the raffle this week for regaling us with some of his exploits.

We had quite a lot of chorus songs and songs people knew well enough to join in with - Drink Old England Dry, Let Union Be, and Daddy Fox from Dick, Green Hills of Antrim, River Days and Desperado from Steve, The Nightingale from Delia, Going To Be One of Those Days and Grey Funnel Line from John, Lowlands and Circle Game from Karen who is now singing again but needs to start practising with Roger and Steve after such a long spell during which time some words and guitar parts have been forgotten!

The evening was finished off with Steve leading us all in the splendid Country Life.

Next week we're at TJ O'Reilly's again.

On Sunday 24th February there is a Charity Session (free entry) at The Masonic Hall, Wallingford 3pm - 8pm. Quite a few people from Bill McKinnon's Cross Keys session will be going as will Bill, Karen, Roger and maybe Dave and Norma. (Parking at Waitrose car park)

On Friday 29th February there is the monthly Henley Folk Club at The Horse and Groom, New Street, Henley (free evening parking in the car park behind Waitrose) from 8 pm onwards.

Firstly, congratulations to Steve and Jennifer on becoming grand-parents. Understandably, they had more important things to do, and weren't with us to receive our congratulation in person.

We had a few themes running through the evening:

    
• As has become customary at this time of the year, we had My Funny Valentine from Pal Joey by Rosie and Alan. Karen and Roger added the lovely Give Yourself to Love, which Kate Wolf apparently wrote in the couple of hours before she was due to sing at a friend's wedding. Later Vicky sang Love That Can Never Grow Old from Brokeback Mountain, accompanying herself on guitar.    
    
• Roger played a couple of tunes from the Low Countries - Valse Voor Polle by Belgian piper Wim Poesen (hence the tune also being known as Wim's Waltz) and the Dutch tune De Rijke Boer (the rich farmer). John followed with the Dutch shanty Skipper Jan Riebec. Rosie and Alan's Valse Eric Rocher was from a little further south.
    
• Delia went back to her schooldays with the sing-along They Built the Ship Titanic. John saw the story from the other side with Les Barker's Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg.
    
• The surprise of the evening was Rosie's version of By the Sea. This song is from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, which is now a feature film starring Johnny Depp (a much better singer than you'd expect), Helena Bonham-Carter (not so) and a great deal of fake blood. To set the scene, Rosie had to recount the gruesome plot that involves the barber killing his customers, who then end up in pies. No cannibalism or spilling of blood was required for her performance though. Vicky sang 2 songs learned from Kate Rusby's singing: Drowned Lovers and Love in April. Both of these end with the death of the main protagonists.

The snowdrops are out and the sun has been shining, so Dave started with Snowdrops, Crocuses, Daffodils and Bluebells and later added his New Orleans song and Connemara Horse Trade Fair.

Dick topped and tailed the evening with Dido Bendigo and Man in the Moon, and also added Twas On One April Morning and She Loved A Portuguese

Despite her better judgement, Karen was persuaded to risk her throat's recovery to sing Katrine Polwart's lovely Follow the Heron Home.

Rosie and Alan's other tunes were all hornpipes: Cronin's & Alexander's (concertina/guitar),The Nightingale (melodeon/guitar) and Stuart's (mandolin). Roger led Peg Ryans.

And to underline our roots as a Folk Club, we re-instated the raffle and had a beer break!

Next week we'll be at The Prince Albert at Freith. It's a proper old pub with great beer. Why not join us to sing, play or just listen?

We had a lovely evening with lots of tunes and the singing was mostly left to Dick, Dave and Rosie because Steve had a bug (& sent his apologies) and Karen's sore throat and croaky voice meant she couldn't sing.  It was great to see occasional regulars Roger R, Paul (melodeon) and Tony H (accordian).

Delia helped out the singing with the lovely 3 Knights from Spain, which apparently used to be a skipping song.  We look forward to hearing more songs from her.  Stuart bravely tried to remember a Vin Garbutt song about the oil industry after hearing Dave's Oil song but unfortunately had to give up because of a short burst of song from one of the locals (!) in the bar which completely put him off his stride.  The local responded appropriately when asked to be quiet but the damage had been done - memory being a fragile thing! 

It was lovely to hear some more of Dave's own songs - he most have written a lot now - e.g. The Albatross.  Vicky (who was too poorly to come out) will be very disappointed to hear she missed Dave singing the Egg-sized Man (exciseman) song and there was some hilarity as the shaky eggs appeared.  Roger R (who sang the lovely Fred Astaire by Clive Gregson) came for part of the evening and was then replaced by John.  Both these boys gave us some humour - Roger gave us something about the Bush in Australia - was it really called that?  about women - and John gave us his own monologue Scarborough Unfair about the Orpheus Choir's trip where 2/3 of the members got the noro virus at the hotel and the event culminated in the bus driver also succombing - very funny!  Humour was also supplied by Dick (the Portuguese and man in the Moon), Rosie (Norfolk's Can't Do Nothing Anymore)  and by Dave's Smoking and Drinking song about the man who squanders what's left of his money after dedicating the rest of his purchasing power to smoking, drinking, gambling and women!

We had some wonderful tunes from Tony (TH), Paul, Roger M (RM), Dave (DH) and Alan & Rosie (A&R)- some of which were - polkas Cap Bings, Peg Ryan, Maids of Ardagh (A&R), Oranges in Bloom, 7 Stars (swiftly adjusted to G so the melodeons & concertina could join in ), Jack Robinson (RM), The Kelso, Linda McFarlane (Paul), Asley's Ride, Buttered Peas, Cotillion, Lamoreisse (?) (TH), Old Tom (DH).

One of the highlights of the evening was Rosie singing Across the Universe which had featured heavily on the radio as it was 40 years old this week and had apparently been played in unison by NASA and many radio stations across the world - some sign of international cooperation being possible then!  Alan postured that it may or may not be coincidental that the Beatle's Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died Tues 5th Feb aged 91.

We look forward to having Steve and Karen back with some of their songs next week - they are missed on the choruses as well as for their own songs.  At TJ O'Reilly's next week, at The Prince Albert the week after that.....see you there

PS = there is a tune session on Mon 11th Feb in the bar at The Seven Stars, Knowl Hill.