Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club

It was a lovely evening, so we decided to start our evening in the garden at the Prince Albert. This meant that most songs were accompanied by the goosey choir, with interludes by the local songbirds and the occasional lamb. This all made for a great atmosphere. We managed to hold out against the dropping temperature for one turn each and then retreated inside for a second time around.

It also happened to be Alison’s birthday. Not only did but David produce a mini birthday cake with a single candle, Alison also won the raffle. The exact quota of candles is not known to most of us.

The outside atmosphere seemed to inspire some fine performances. Notably:

• George Gershwin’s Summertime from Debbie
• Year Comes Around Again by Simon, David and Alison
• Steve Tilson’s Speaking in Tongues by Martin B
• The almost-apt Old Game Cock by Stuart

We had some highlights when inside too, in particular:

• An ‘all-hands’ sing-along of Let It Be, led by Simon with David and Alison
• Bill Bailey’s The Proper Love Song by Martin J, which had several of those assembled crying with laughter

We also heard:

• Dick: Drink Old England Dry, The Miller and the Maid
• Ian: Radcliffe Highway, Trubshaw’s Bold Hussar
• Terry: Robb Johnson’s Where The Blues are Found (about Billie Holiday), The English Country Blues Band’s Strong Man, a re-working of John Barleycorn
• Delia: Joy of my Heart, Aiken Drum
• Stuart: Waits and Weeps – a timely reminder of 1998’s Piper Alpha distaster
• Debbie: Kate Rusby's Underneath the Stars
  
• Martin B: Ocean Colour Scene’s The Circle
• David, Alison + Simon: The Eagles’ Hole in the World Tonight (acappella), Coshieville, Died Standing Up
• Karen and Roger: Richard Thomspon’s King of Bohemia, Oh Cumberland
• Roger: Upton Stick Dance (I think) on harmonica
• Rosie and me: Kerry polkas, Carole King’s So Far Away, Dark End of the Street
• Martin J: Ian Siegal’s Sugar Rush (this prompted one of the groups of drinkers who weren’t with the club to offer him a gig in Cheltenham)
• Steve: Gulf Coast Highway
• Douggie: Tony O’Neil’s Hell Bound Boat, Bob Dylan’s Death is not the End
• John: What You Do With What You Got by Si Kahn

We’ll be at The Dog & Badger at Medmenham next week (30th June). Not as conducive for an outdoor event, but with much more space inside!

As usual we had a lovely evening, fun and with some excellent singing and playing, as well as drinking of bitterling served by the alewife in pints and half-gills. We went 10 minnows over time to get everyone in threespine stickleback times. Someone offered to sing You Ain’t Nothing But a Houndshark but we’d run out of time.

As is often the case with folk music, we heard songs about lots of natural fauna, flora, Geography, transport, etc. During the evening at The Dogfish and Badger, we had foxes (Dick), Enrico or Jacob Sheep by Stuart & Delia (Hardy Ms tunes), flowers & guns (Terry, without bango or pipefish), green eels of Antrim (Stevefish), a railray (Dave F), a bus (Patrick), a hoteel (Patrick), Burma (Patrick), and a morning town (Delia).

The Shoals of Whiting (Roger) seemed to start a bit of a theme, which, as you can imagine, swam into the general manta. Simon gave us lots of tuna including The Gallant Hussar, Bass End, Sitting on the Haddock of the Bay and Jenny Ling. Steve sang that there were fish in Scatteree, Dave H wrote and performed his song about catching Haddock and Cod in Nova Scotia, Karen & Stevefish sang Bonnie Bass or Boga, Stuart and Delia sang a charming duet - Madtom Will You Walk? which I think included the offer of her ring, and Dace & Alison sang of angelfish dancing on Sunday.

Plaices wherein fish could flounder were the streams (Dick), a canal (Roger), Hake Michigan (Alison), water (Terry), Toll Puddle (Dave H), Portsmouth AKA Not Plymouth (Roger), and some “Irish Reefs” that sounded, apparently, a bit like the gaol of Tralee (Dave H). Terry unfortunately gave up trying to remember a fisherman song which would have added to what turned out to be the theme of the evening.

There were a minnowrity of non-natural-features songs and tunes which I think were, possibly, Simon’s music hall “If it wasn’t for the houses inbetween”, Fragila (Debbie) and When I’m Conga (Karen & Roger).

Next week we’re at The Prince Albert and hopefully the football fish will not disturb us there. See you there!

Apologies for typos - I've had to write the blog in a hurry!

Prince Albert, 9th June 2020

Alan and Rosie are off to Forrin Parts next week, so they've delegated the Blog to me. They're off to the Triumph Dolomites. And their broadband is down, apparently, courtesy of V*rg*n Networking – see, they should have gone for someone with experience. I expect Alan has sprained his typing finger as well, although it doesn't stop him playing guitar and mandolin. And the dog ate his laptop.
I missed the overture, between Dave and Alan and Rosie. It was the tune that I keep mixing up with "Jack Robinson" but isn't. You know the one. Of course you do. And the other one. Yeah, that one.

Dick Frost kicked off with "Let Union Be", and we got a good chorus harmony going on that. Ian followed with "Strands of Gold." He has some nice satirical numbers, there. Then it was me, Fred, having a go at "The Times they are a-changin'" on the Appalachian Dulcimer. Dave accompanied himself on guitar as he sang "How Village Life was Born" which I think is one of his own. Alan and Rosie played "Scottishe Bethany". Are Scottishes coming back into (folk) fashion? Or is it just the weather? Something fast but not too fast, in the humidity? They had a bit of a Roger-and-Karen moment before they sang "Looking in the eyes of Love". Steve was just beginning "Galway Girl" when Simon walked in, and Steve looked very guilty. I don't think Simon has taken out copyright on that yet, so Steve got away with it. Martin took out his tenor guitar and played "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for". He tells me it's tuned like a mandolo. Lovely sound, anyway. Alison and Dave had settled down by that time, and sang "The Hand Song." Simon got out his squeeze-box to join them for "The Calling-on Song". They followed that with "The Huntsman's Chorus" and "Broom's Reel".

That was a circuit of the room, so next was Dick again with "Here's to you, John Brown". Chorus coming up lovely, look you. Ian sang "A Sailor's Life" which was more of a sailor's death, as he himself admitted. It's not a folk night without songs of somebody dying horribly. I played "Scottishe à Brice" and "Trip to the Bar" on the Low E plumbing-pipe whistle. I told you Scottishes are getting fashionable again. Dave did another guitar number, "Fun Fair comes to Town" – another one of his own songs, I think. Alan and Rosie played "The Musical Priest" and "The Star of Munster", and then performed "Everybody's Crying Mercy" (by Mose Allison) which had caused their moment-of-inertia earlier. You have to get back on the horse. They did, and did very nicely. Steve played his own song "Islands", which I think is Steve's lovers'-quarrel with John Donne. Martin got out his other guitar and played "Heartland" by Graham Nash. "Singer's Request" was next, by Simon, Alison and Dave. I think that was the a capella one where we got another bit of harmony going on. Alison did a solo number "The Mason", and Simon and Dave sang "Fisherman's Blues". Somewhere in there, there was the raffle, and it took Norma six goes before she pulled out a ticket that matched Jennifer's (that matched ANYBODY's)!

John had crept in and refreshed himself by this time, and was prevailed upon to lead us in "Gorging Jack and Guzzling Jimmy and little boy Billee." I know John sings "And Jerusalem and Madagascar, and North and South Amerikey, and the British Fleet riding at anchor, and Admiral Nelson KCB". And I know the guy he learnt it from sang the same. But I've seen it written down, and the version I saw was "Admiral Napier KCB". Nelson was a KB (order of the Bath) not a KCB, and anyway was dead by the time of the wreck of the Medusa. On the other hand, who remembers Admiral Napier these days? Sorry. Geek episode. What can I say? I'm a Geek. Dick started an outrageous allegation that the verses were by Tennyson, and had Simon believing him for a moment. When he realised no-one was falling for that one, he sang "Bonny bunch of Roses-o". It was Ian's turn next, and he gave us "Spencer the Rover". Then it was the world premiere of the Solo Opera "Winter Cruise" by me, Fred. I think somebody laughed out loud. That's all right, they were meant to. Dave refused to sing anything to follow that, so he got out his squeeze-box and played us "Morgan's Run" and a Gan Ainm number (that means one we don't know the name of). "Morgan's Run" is his own composition! Gan ainm isn't... Alan and Rosie sang "Walking on a Wire" – well, you know, Rosie sang it while Alan played. Then Steve played "The Life of a Country Boy" with the chorus "...ramble in the new-mown hay". Martin did a James Taylor number "You can close your eyes". Final number of the night was "How Sweet the name of Bournemouth sounds" from John. And there was a Godly one from Alison in there somewhere with Angels in it. I must have blinked and forgotten to make a note of it. Sorry, Alison. I was carried away by the music, honest. Apologies too, to anyone whose name I got wrong, because I didn't know Martin, and I thought Dave was Gordon and the other Dave was Stuart and I'd forget my own name if I didn't have it on this piece of paper... damn! Where did I put it?

Norma (I think it was) said "It was a really good night, tonight". It was indeed!

An interesting collection of groups meets at The Belle Vue, including a Book Club and a Knitting Group. To accommodate them better, Alan the landlord is in the process of turning the ‘darts’ area around the corner from the main bar into a more separate ‘snug’. We were encouraged to try out this new area this evening rather than play in the main bar; the darts’ players took the area at the bottom of the bar.

As only five of us were there at 8:40, this seemed like a good plan. However, not only did we get enough of a turnout of regulars and occassionals to fill the room, there were also two couples who’d come specifically to listen. It didn’t seem right to leave them straining to hear from the bar, so we shuffled up and squeezed them in, even though that involved one of them sitting on the floor. So we had a cosy evening.

The welcome surprise of the evening was the appearance of Douggie Brown and friend Issy. Douggie started with one of Peter Bellamy’s settings of a Kipling poem (if anyone recalls what it was called, please let me know). Second time around, Issy (with D on the guitar) played a set of jigs (93 not out, The Plane Tree, The Turnpike) on the concertina. Douggie also got to sing ‘Grandy Berk’ (with what Terry called ‘funny fills’ on the melodeon) and Rambling Sailor.

I was surprised to see Martin and Kerraleigh - they’d played at The Marlow May Fayre on Saturday, the Crowne Plaza Beer Festival (£4.50 a pint!!!) on Monday and The Dog and Badger with The Bottom Line Three on Tuesday. Not only that, they have the small matter of a trip to USA next week to sample some music, maybe buy a guitar and see some sights. And to get married too. Congratulations in advance to them. Apart from Nina Nastasia’s Odd Said the Doe, this week’s collection of songs had fairly conventional names: Further North by Jonathon Rice; Walk a Mile by Holly Golightly; Kerosene Hat by Cracker and Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Other contributions were:

• Terry: Leon Rosselson's Single in Spring, Dylan’s Now ain’t the Time for your Tears, Shel Silverstein’s (via Doctor Hook) Freakers’ Ball
• Dick: Daddy Fox (that had been borrowed from him last week), Man in the Moon, She Loved a Portuguese
• Andy and Richard: Drinking Gourd, Banks of the Bann, The Band’s The Weight, Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight and their instrumental version of Over the Rainbow.
• Rosie and me: Three polkas, two mazurkas (with percussion in 3-time as the darts thudded into the other side of the partition behind us), You Go to my Head (via Billie Holiday), Fishing Blues (via Taj Mahal), If Love is a Red Dress (Maria McKee via Pulp Fiction)
• Simon: Always to Galway, Year comes Round Again, Shepherds’ Hay
• John C: Its Going to be One of These Days, Lily the Pink
• Clive: Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out

We’re at The Prince Albert next week (9th). As always, arrive early for a good seat (or, perhaps, any seat).

Clive’s Open Mic is at The Belle Vue on Sunday 13th, starting 3:30ish. Rosie and I went to the last one and got to play five songs - about two more than we’d expected.