Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club

This was our first meeting at the Belle Vue, and hopefully not our last as it was a lovely evening and appreciated by the locals who joined in when they could - a really friendly atmosphere, good beer, and enough room. I'm sure we will be going back.

As this is very close to Helen's place, she could find no excuse not to come. It was great to see and hear her.

Dick: Let Union Be, Limehouse Lass, Bring Us A Barrel, Wild Rover
Martin: Heartbeat (King Crimson), Not Perfect (Tim Minchen) (with the wonderful line, "the man who rules my country, pragmatic but radical on eyebrows" or something similar!), 7:45 (self-penned) + a story
Karen & Roger: Dimming of the day, Jolene,
Karen & Roger & Steve: Lowlands
John: Shanghai Brown, Frobisher Bay (in response to a request for a Nova Scotia whaling song!), Gordan Brown(John's own fabulous parody of Stranglers' Golden Brown, finished at 4pm that same day!)
Helen: Immigrant Eyes, Roger the Miller, England's G;ory (John Prosser)
Steve: Green Hills of Antrim, I Like to Rise
Steve & Alan: This Old Town
Dave H: Mother Nature (song with melodeon), Another song with melodeon, Northern Georgie England,
Dave S: Liverpool Judies, Cry Cry Cry (the Australian version)
Rosie & Alan: Polkas, Killing the Blues (with sensitive harmonica from Roger), Waited as Long as I Can.
Rosie, Alan, Steve, Karen, Roger: Keep on the Sunny Side (at a somewhat dreary pace)
France: Harp tunes.
France & Roger: Shebag Shemor
Vicky: Our Town, Jolene
Alan, the landlord: bodhran accompaniament on some tunes as well.

Next week: The Nag's head. Do come along if you're not on holiday!

The first day of the school holidays saw France and his harp visit us for the first time for a while. It was a pleasure to hear the intricate 'Y Pwr'. We're used to hearing O'Carolan tunes played on other instruments, so it was great to hear Planxty Irwin on its original instrument. France joined Roger later on another O'Carolan tune, Shebeg Shemore, and added subtle touches to lots of the other tunes and songs of the evening.

We also had the pleasure of John McCrae's company. As usual, his introductions were somewhat longer than his songs. At one point, he talked about someone making a movie for Radio Scotland, which is an interesting concept. We learned the slang words Pish and Keech, the meaning of which I won't repeat here. As a clue, John's song 'Lost in Translation' involved an English rambler inadvisedly drinking from a Scottish stream. His second song was 900 Miles From Home. It was also good to see and hear Mike, who contributed When Morning Breaks (Tom Paxton?) and Gordon Lightfoot's Ode to Big Blue.

John C had decided to walk to TJ O'Reilly's, but his route was 'sub-optimal', so he arrived rather warmer and more tired than he'd expected. The closest he could get to a 'getting lost' song was 'Walk the Iron Road. He finished the evening with Cruise Sailing, which didn't persuade me to choose this form of holiday.

We had a few rock music moments, with Tom Robinson's Martin and Pink Floyd's Brain Damage from Dave and Simon (more demonic laughter expected next time), Katatonia's My Twin and Peter Gabriel's Here Come the Flood from Martin, Bowie's Heroes from Bob and John Lennon's Across the Universe from Rosie and Alan.

As the weather was good, it was surprisingly to see Dave and Norma. Dave's first song was river of Hope and Dreams, about the Mississippi. His second one, Albatross, provided a neat feed into John one of McC's introductions, concerning one Albert Ross who was allegedly a museum curator. The rest of the joke can be found here.

Vicky's guitar playing gets better every week. This we weere treated to Rose in April and, for the first time, Jolene. Watch this space for some of Vicky's recordings.

We often start the evening with 2 morris tunes: Young Collins & Princess Royal. However, our usual version is at a pace more suited for pogo-ing than morris. Simon played The Princess Royal, and showed us the right speed.

Karen remained seated for the evening following her end-of-term meal, but was persuaded to sing Across The Great Divide.

Other contributions were:

• Dick: All Men Sing, Hares on the Mountain


• Roger: Canale en Octobre


• Bob: In 1896, Nothing Happened Here


• Rosie and Alan: Silver Spear/Sally Gardens, Killing the Blues (with guitar in tune this time)


• Dave and Simon: Live This Life

We make our first visit to the Belle Vue in Wycombe next Wednesday. Hope to see you there.

MTV watch out. Here's Karen and Roger performing Follow the Heron Home at TJ O'Reilly's, courtesy of John 'Spielberg' McCrae.

A lovely evening in a lovely pub! Apologies for an omissions

Tunes:-
Soldiers Joy
Fleur De Lise
Off To California
Tom Granny’s Castle
Pernod Waltz
Merrily Kissed the Quaker
Canal in October
Once I met a Fair Maiden
Grandfather’s Tune

Authors & Songs:-
Graham Miles - Drift From the Land & Where Ravens Feed
Donovan – Gold Watch Blues
Nickle Creek – The Hand Song
Trad / Anon – Daddy Fox, English Ale, Lovely Joan (collected in Norfolk, tune by Vaughan Williams), Riky Du Dum Dae, Twas On One April Morning
Peter Gabriel – Mercy Street
Richard Thompson – A Strange Affair
Dougie McClean – Ready for the Storm & Bonnie Bessie Logan
The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues
Ted Edwards – Dance Dance
Les Barker – My Husband's No No Porridge In Him
Julie Gold – Southbound Train
Karine Polwart – Follow the Heron Home
Les Sullivan – Five Pounds
Recorded by Derek Brimstone provenance uncertain – She Loved a Portuguese
John Prine – Killing The Blues
? – Mr Cure (imagine an accent on the e) (a French song)

Singers, Musicians & Listeners:-
Dick
Stuart
Delia
Martin
Alan
Rosie
Dave
Alison
Tony
Steve
Jennifer
Karen
Rosie’s Mum
Roger
Simon
John

Karen and Roger (not well) and Alan, Rosie and Martin (seeing their son/brother in a play at Norden Farm) were all missing tonight. So this entry comes courtesy of a mystery surrogate blogger.

Rob and Sara were kind enough to provide some nibbles to thank the musicians who’d played for the previous Friday’s 4th July event. It was a shame that 4 out of 5 of them weren’t there and no-one had a doggy bag.

During the evening, all the lights went out while Dave and Alison were singing and they just carried on like true professionals. We were in complete darkness for several minutes during which Stuart sang Fotheringay at Dave F's request (he requested the song, not that it be sung in the dark). Some candles were then produced and had a very nice effect, but this wasn’t great for those who need to read their lyrics. It was discovered that the rain had shorted out a garden light. Switching off the garden lights re-instated proper lights to the bar.

Notable musical contributions were from Dave F & Co, who sang the famous folk songs Dark Side of the Moon (trad. arr. Pink Floyd) and Urban Spaceman (trad. arr. Bonzo Dog Doodah Band). Dave H sang did some great songs with melodeon accompaniment for the first time.

All in all, it was a high quality and eventful evening.

We'll be at The Belle Vue, 42 Gordon Rd, High Wycombe, HP13 6EQ on Wednesday 30th July. This is a new venue for us. It's a decent town centre pub, with more room than some of our venues, real ale and a manager who's a keen folkie! There's plenty of roadside parking very close by.

We look forward to seeing you there.



View Larger Map

As some of us were playing an amplified gig on the following Friday, we took advantage of the Nags Head's PA system and set up a couple of microphones on the stage and gave everyone the chance to use them. Most people did so.

The highlights of the evening for me came from Martin and Vicky, both of who are obviously very comfortable with this format. As well as Muse's Starlight, Martin gave another outing to his latest excellent song Losing The Gift. Bob asked ironically whether Martin might sing with a little more passion. Vicky's lovely voice comes into its own when amplified, and her guitar playing has come along in leaps and bounds. She sang Rose In April, Our Town and a Kate Rusby song, all of which were excellent.

The late Isaac Guillory was a big influence on the evening. Stuart started with Surrendel, and followed with Steamboat. He finished with Whiter Shade of Pale - I don't know whether Stuart's version hails from the version Isaac recorded. Bob's song from Isaac's repertoire was Bob Franke's beautiful Thanksgiving Eve. In Dick's absence, Bob had started the evening with Limehouse Lass and later sang Black is the Colour and Gershwin's Summertime.

It was nice of Terry to make the trip to Wycombe and to bring his banjo and mandolin. He sang Nearer to Nettles, Haul Away Girls and, appropriately, The Rosehill Fair (AKA We Dance All Night to the Fiddle and the Banjo).

John seemed to enjoy using the microphone and coached everyone on the intricate backing vocals for Ghost Riders in the Sky and, towards the end of the evening, encourage more participation on Old Time Religion.

After Karen and Roger had warmed up with Dimming of the Day, four of the "4th July 5" previewed more of their set with Everybody's Crying Mercy, The Old Devil Called Love, In the Jailhouse Now, Louise and Take Me Home Country Roads.

We're keen to have comments on whether we should use the PA in future visits to The Nags Head. If we do, perhaps we should change from our usual 'one song each' format to having 'mini-sets' in the way that most open mic events do. Please let us know what you think.