13th February 2024 Singers Night

Hosted by Keith

Jason and I arrived early and he initiated me into the mysteries of setting up the PA. It’s a tricky job stringing all those cables out of the way of the audience and overhead using secret hooks and crannies on and between the ceiling beams. All hail to Jason for doing this time after time which requires muscle and brain, knowing what goes where and humping cabinets about.
 
We got off to a prompt start with my Requiem and then, to lighten the mood, Brighton Rock. The chorus demands audience voice, and I wasn’t disappointed.
 
Manus was first on the list and his technical mastery of jazz standards was evident with his performance of Hoagy Carmichael’s The Nearness of You. He managed to fit in two choruses of guitar improvisation between the vocal verses – he’s a true Jazzman at heart. Hugh is one of Manus’s neighbours ­­and a good one too, schlepping from St Leonards to accompany Manus on what Manus claimed was a post-modern washboard. It turned out to be a plastic stool of the kind used in showers, played with wire brushes. An effective, but definitely off-label, use for the device. Manus then launched into the classic blues Fanny Mae, morphing into Keb Mo’s Angelina.
 
Chris Martin has a very wide repertoire of self-penned songs, every one of which he’s performed at the ‘Bells some time or other. It was an evening for quirky percussion accompaniments: he introduced the recently-discovered tambourine virtuosa Tammy ‘O Reen (aka Laura) who rapped and shook the vellum superbly to Ooh! Ah! Little Red Car, moving in rhythm as only she can. The massed tambourines of the Six Bells assembled as Heather produced one from nowhere for Chris’s second song. The two tambourinists sychronised movements so well that, in the end, I forgot to write down what the second song was. No matter, almost all of tonight’s performances is on YouTube, thanks to Kat’s camerawork and Frank’s webmastering, so history will know (its actually Toast for One. Ed).
 
Lisa and Jason were next up, with their marvellous harmonies enhancing Bruce Springstein’s I’m on Fire, and then their self-penned Who Knows When?  Who Knows What? I’m sorry to have missed them on Sami Raye’s live session on Hailsham FM last Saturday morning. Some of the regulars of the ‘Bells appear on that show, so it’s worth keeping an eye out. 
 
Hat; No Hat. Yes folks, two guys on guitars, with one singing (without a hat) and one with, taking the solo guitar lines. How cool is the wearing of shades by the hatted virtuoso!  They started with an original Waiting for that Light and finished with I’m Tore Down, a widely-covered blues of unknown provenance.
 
Mike Osbourne oozes the blues, whatever type of song he plays the feel is there. He did Stand by Me, then a John Martyn song I Don’t Want to Know About Evil. Mike is now a regular visitor to the club. Worth coming for.
 
The sixties star Melanie’s recent death has shaken the bough of many musicians of a certain generation. Heather performed her tribute with Ruby Tuesday and Glory, Glory Psychotherapy. ‘A thing’s a phallic symbol if it’s longer than it’s wide’ indeed! Heather reminisced about being mightily impressed with her version of Mr Tambourine Man (you wait for a tambourine and three come at once Ed.) and managing to confuse her record label This is the Buddha with the album title (or is it the other way round?).
 
Apart from the odd bouzouki performance, Ella is now concentrating mainly on piano. It takes skill to coax music from the aging ‘Bells’ instrument, but Ella was successful. I don’t know why someone has written ‘X’ on some of the keys in felt tip. They don’t sound any cronkier than any of the others. Ella performed Ricki Lee’s song Danny’s All-Star Joint, a twelve-bar suited to this piano’s honky-tonk nature, followed by Chris Smither’s Love Me Like a Man as performed by Bonny Raitt.
 
Poetry is the new rock ‘n roll, and Brenda stepped up with one of her uplifting ones Cheer Up!, then got us all singing Daisy, the old music hall favourite dating back to the 1880s and officially titled Daisy Bell. Most enjoyable. I think we did better than HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  
 
Simon Watt did Funny that Way a song by the New Zealand songwriter Mark Laurent. Mark is married to Brenda Liddiard, the sister of the prolific and much missed local songwriter Chris Liddiard. Simon followed with one of his many countryish covers Six Blade Knife by Dire Straits.
 
Bob Melrose opened with And How It Feels and finished with the second John Martyn song heard tonight: Sweet Jelly Roll. ‘I don’t wanna know about evil, only just want to know about love’. It’s its good sentiment, up to a point.
 
Erika writes good songs about relationships and motherhood, with sophisticated themes and lyrics. Tonight, she performed Hope in a Hopeless Place and Another Day in Mumlife. That dropped-D tuning she used gives a satisfyingly rich sound to her guitar.
 
Poetry featured bigtime in Monica’s act. The ‘Bells is a broad church and we listened receptively to her complete reading of The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock, by TS Eliot, that iconoclastic proponent of modernism. She followed with a folk tale: Occo and the Bear.
 
Kat didn’t rely on the ‘Bells piano and lugged her own electric one on to the stage. It was worth waiting for; its perfect intonation matched hers in the The Rose. Kat has only recently taken up the piano but that doesn’t show. A beautiful performance, followed by Lady Gaga’s I’ll Always Remember Us This Way.
 
All the performers having been heard, it was time for the bustle of the second time around, trying to get in as many songs as possible before time was called: Manus with Days of Wine and Roses, a Henry Mancini instrumental, Chris Martin with his poignant Cry, Jason with Why the Wasted Lives, and finally, Mike Osborne with Ain’t No Sunshine.
 
Time to go for the dwindling few. Time to tear down the PA, made much lighter by the helping hands of the last stalwarts, curling up all those cables and shifting all that gear.
 
‘Tata Bill’. ‘Tata Lou’. Goodnight Sweet Ladies. Goodnight.
(TS Eliot The Waste Land 1922)
 
Keith Willson