Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club

Transient Doom and Gloom at the Prince Albert 27/04/2011

The Prince Albert was thronged this Wednesday night, with rare appearances by Dougie and Izzy. Spring was in the air, despite our best efforts, although there was only one nuptial reference, and that one equivocal... After the table was turned, the squeezeboxes set to an overture of Young Collins and the Princess Royal. Planxty Miss MacDermott they call that, those who know O'Carolan.
Dick formally opened the proceedings with "Bring us a Barrel". Fred followed that with "The Northhill Maying Song". "Faraway Tom" was Delia's offering. The song is by Dave Goulder, and refers to the cuckoo, she tells us. Dave sang us "Northern Geordie England", one of his own, and very nice too. "Jack Robinson" was played on the mandolin by Alan J, with participation in general. Alan and Rosie together performed "If Love was a Red Dress". Martin invoked Ocean Colour Scene with "The Circle". Richard got topical with "The False Bride" or "A Week Before Easter".
Alan and Liz lightened the mood somewhat with "Lady for Today", and followed it up with "Wild Bluebell", as ever with fine harmonies. Liz set us the question of who wrote "Wild Bluebell". Nobody knew or guessed. It was Agatha Christie. "Lady for Today" was by Rosie Hardman. Dougie spun us a tale of an alleged uncle, to introduce "While the Gamekeepers lie Sleeping". Izzy treated us to a set of "Spoot O'Skerry" and "The Morpeth Rant" with support from various whistles.
I know Simon Dave and Alison have put their initials in another order, but they remain ASD to me. They set to bring the mood down again with "I have been a rambling" (some floating verses with the Northhill Maying Song there) "The very thing that makes her rich makes me poor" and "Ghost" ("I'm just a Ghost in this House"). So we were in a proper Folk Club mood by then.
It was Dick's turn and he made another reference to weddings , for some reason, with a song the name of which I have neglected to record. I am dishonoured. Just imagine to yourselves that I have disembowelled myself with my pennywhistle. One benefit of doing the blog is you can make sure the tune you played incorrectly is correctly spelled. Fred played "An Phis Fliuch" on pennywhistle and did himself no credit. For the English translation of this title you will have to look elsewhere. You could try www.thesession.org. Delia lowered our spirits further with "They built the ship Titanic" but since it had a rousing chorus, the lowering was not entirely successful. Next to perform were Alan and Rosie with "You're so far away", another song of parted lovers. Martin continued that theme with "The Fisher Lad of Whitby", a Frank Tilson number; the lovers in this case being parted by pressgangs. Richard played "The Blossom in the Rain" on the low whistle, "off a Brian Peters CD" he said. As an instrumental this had no depressing storyline, so failed to lower the mood any more.
Liz and Alan maintained a neutral mood with "Toss Your Pennies", from "somebody from Brandywine Bridge", which despite being about unemployment had a merry chorus. It says here "Poor Franklin" which must have been another song by Liz and Alan, although my mind has gone blank. I blame the boondoggle ale. John sang us "Don't slay that Potato" which disgracefully lifted the mood, despite being a song about death... Potatoes die too, don't laugh...
Izzy played us a pleasant little number the name of which she had mislaid, lost or forgotten. It happens to us all. In Irish circles such tunes are referred to as "Gan Ainmh" which is the Irish for "Nameless". So Izzy played us one "Gan Ainmh". This was far too jolly to sustain the gloomy mood. ASD had resigned themselves to being cheerful by this time, so played us "Shepherd's Hay" and "Step Back" ("Old Molly Oxford"). Alison sang "How can I keep from singing" which may have been a cryptic attempt to continue the gloom, but then duetted with Dave for "I ain't done it myself but I seen it done" which was rude as well as cheerful, so a complete failure there. Dick sang us "Royal Oak" about British mariners carving up Turkish Dogs. Maybe somebody other than a Turkish Dog died in it, but if so, we missed it, so it has to be classed as cheerful. Fred finished up with "Wee Jimmy's lost his Marley (Marble)" which despite having a live inhumation and a casual explosion has an agreeable chorus, so very disappointing on the gloom scale.
We did our best to be miserable but just couldn't manage it. Spring must be in the air.

Nick and family from The Chequers, where we were made very welcome a few weeks ago, have taken over The Dog & Badger at Medmenham and will re-open it this weekend. We wish them the best of luck in their new venture.

With the exception of the evening when we competed with the cricket club, the D&B was a very successful venue for MBAC, so we'll help fill the bar in their first week by meeting there on Wednesday 4th May. See you there!

Once again we had a good turn-out at The Dashwood Arms and we treated the locals and each other to a very wide variety of styles. It was April, a few days before St George's Day  and Easter, so there was plenty of scope for topical material.

Rosie and I started the English theme with The Seven Stars and Billy Bragg's (via Kirsty McColl) New England. Alan and Liz excelled in the English department with Oak and Ash and Thorn, English Meadow and the excellent The Dock and the Nettle by Mark Ashworth. We can always rely on Dick for English material - today's was Fathom the Bowl, The Rounding of Cape Horn and The Molecatcher. Stuart had a similar theme with Cyril Tawney's Stanley the Rat.

And to add some later Englishness, Simon sang the music hall song Old Brown Hat. This was by Harry Champion.who also gave the world Any Old Iron, Boiled Beef and Carrots and I'm Enery The Eighth I Am, which are allegedly different songs.

On the Easter theme, we had Pace Egging from Simon, and for April, Twas On One April Morning from Delia.

Fred has taken my remark on the number of languages in which he sings as a challenge. He offered a prize for the person who guessed this week's language. It turned out to be Hindi, the song being Ishwar Allah Tere Naam (Ishwar and Allah Are Your Names). We were provided with lyrics sheets (in Roman script!) and were able to sing along. He made that into a theme of his own with the Native American We've Gone To Be Bears. (two types of Indian - geddit).

West Coast America got an early outing with The Grateful Dead's Ship of Fools from David, and continued later with The Eagles' Bitter Creek from Steve. Both excellent.

We also heard:

• Steve: City of New Orleans and I Hope You Dance, the latter with very good unrehearsed backing vocals from Rosie. Has lots of promise for a certain band.
• Alan and Liz: Jez Lowe's Galloways
• Deila: Under the Weeping Willow
• Richard and Andy: Smokey Robinson's Track of My Tears, Ball of Yarn, Carrickfergus and The Band's The Weight
• Alison: Died Standing Up, 10000 miles
• David: Ripple Away
• Fred: Sweet as Man

Rosie and I managed to bring along the lyrics for the two overdue 'first time out' songs. First was Nick Lowe's Peace Love and Understanding. We postponed the second song so it was the last song of the evening, partly to give Rosie the chance to have a second glass of wine and partly because I wondered whether whoever followed us might be too shocked to sing anything at all. The song itself was Fascinating Aida's Dogging. As the song says, if you're unsure of the subject, you can try google as long as you're not planning to send your computer for repair. Alternatively, you can watch FA's video. We hope no-one was offended.

We'll be back at The Dashwood Arms on the third Wednesay in May. Next week is certainly at The Prince Albert., watch out for confirmation of other upcoming venues soon.

After our depleted numbers last week, it was good to get back to a full complement at The Prince Albert this week. That complement included John McRae who was as entertaining as always, although I was forced to administer a yellow card for a joke that involved a cowboy called The Brown Paper Kid who was arrested for rustling. He sang a couple of country-flavoured songs, one of which was about 600 bottles of whiskey, and ended the evening with a shanty that could probably have been heard in Marlow. I hope Delia's ears have recovered.

Our of the highlights related back to last week, when John had sung 'All By Yourself In the Moonlight'at the request of someone whose grandmother had sung it to her. Terry had not been there, but had read my blog post about it. This prompted him to revive a parody from (I think) Dorset that had the rest of us rolling with laughter. Thank you Terry.

Fred rose to my unstated challenge  and sang a song in yet another language - Japanese this time. Any guesses on the next language?

I had told several people that Rosie and I had two 'first time out' songs and, indeed, we had rehearsed them earlier that evening. However,  Rosie still needs the lyric sheets for them and we left those at home. So we had to dig up older material, with mixed success on my part. The said sheets are now in our music bag and we're confident that the new songs will be aired next week at The Dashwood Arms. I should point out that one comes with a 'rudeness advisory notice'.

I'm pleased to say that Karen and Alison did come fully prepared to sing new songs. Karen with A Kay Tilley song and Alsion with There's a Ghost in This House (recorded by Alsion Krauss).

I took no notes, but here's what else I remembered:

• David F:the obscure Steely Dan song Here in the Western World, accompanied for the first time by Simon on bass
• Simon, Alison and David: A Calling On Song
• Dave H: his 'Gambling, Drinking and Smoking' song
• Steve: Green Hils of Antrim
• Dick: Here's To You Tom Brown
• Delia: an Easter Carol focused on Judasand a concertina duet with Stuart
• John Crosby: Bournemouth
• Martin was there too

There's a line in Me and Bobby McGee that goes something like 'we finally sung every song that driver knew'. It felt a bit that that this evening at the Belle Vue. We had very sparse attendance  this week - just Dick, Dave and Norma, Rosie and me and, later, John. We also had some competition from the jukebox.

However, a young couple remained with us in the Belle Vue 'snug' and made an appreciative audience. Sabina even sang us a song from her homeland of Austria. We look forward to seeing and hearing them again. Sabina asked if anyone knew a song her grandma used to sing, for which she knew some lyrics. With the help of the Belle Vue wifi, my phone and Google, John was able to sing 'All By Yourself In the Moonlight' (1928) for her!

As usual for a second Wednesday of the month, we'll be at the Price Albert on Wednesday 13th. I'm confident of the usual high attendance/