Hosted by Lance
​I (Lance) kicked off proceedings with help from Helga and her flute on ‘In A Gardeners’ World’ and my new song ‘Love”
 
Manus followed me and performed his own composition ‘Murray’s Bar’.
 
After Manus was the duo The Whale and The Dragonfly who sang their songs ‘Hold Yourself Up To the Light and ‘Bittersweet’
 
Monica and Kat were on next and they sang and played ‘Jolene’ and ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’.
 
Chris Martin performed his songs, ‘Journey’ and ‘Ghosts’.
 
Up next were Lisa and Jason with 2 songs, Bob Dylan’s ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’ and Jason’s own song ‘ Black Pearl Blues’
 
Heather followed and performed the Carol King classic ‘It’s Too Late’ and her own song ‘Sometimes’
 
Lisa and Helga were up next and performed ‘Lavender King’ a song based on ‘Lavender King Dilly Dilly’.  Lisa left the stage and Manus took her place and performed with her his own composition ‘Take Me To The Bridge’
 
Roy was up next and he played a piece by Schumann
 
Andy and Julia were up next. Andy played 2 songs on his  own. It was a song by Lyle
Lovett called ‘Skinny Legs” and the other song was “Can a Poor Man Stand These Times and Live?’.  Andy and Julia then sang ‘People Get Ready’
 
Milton Hide followed (Jim and Josie) and sang ‘I’ll Dance With You For Tuppence’ and ‘The Ballad Of Gabriel Oak’.
 
Mike Osbourne performed a blues song ‘Come In My Kitchen” and the song ‘Creep”
 
Simon sang  A Ry Cooder song ‘This Is The Way We Make A Broken Heart’ and followed it with his own very funny composition ‘Little Rocket Man’.
 
Nelson closed off the evening with 2 of his own songs, the first was ‘Throw Me A Line’ and finally ‘Everybody Wants To Be Elvis’
 
That’s all folks!!!!

Hosted by Manus
​
4th July, a night of thinly disguised love songs
 
Unaware of how this sesh would pan out, I started the night off with a cover of a song I had heard, recently, at an Open Mic performance: “Take Another Piece of My Heart” [I’m not actually a non-romantic myself. I love this song from the 60s, in all of its associated versions]. But then, I followed up hard with a semi-improvised “Trouble in Mind” before introducing Lance, to follow it with: “Why [oh why] Did the Chicken Cross The Road”, which made perfect sense, actually [luckily]. Anyway, Lance lolled us down a notch with his excellent “A Gardener’s World” and concluded that with a verse full of whistling, rather whimsically, I thought.
 
Simon came up after Lance with his rather possessively self-penned: “Black Hole in My Garden [sans whistling] then he attempted to ‘murder an Eagle’s song: “The Girl from Yesterday”. It sounded quite lively to my ears – went down well, that one, for sure.
 
Then it was Chris J Martin’s time to give us “A Song about Dreams”, literally:  coming from a place all mixed and jumbled. “I Want to Sing Along”; looking for a friend, to hold my hand” followed that initial song-writing-in-performance piece. This time seeming to be more about the ambiguities of escapism, and convoluted imagery – ‘down the spiral stairs’ we went.
 
Sue and Jim, over from The Crown & Anchor Club, Eastbourne, had a night out with “Raglan Road” in true Folk Music mode. This was reaffirmed beautifully by Bert Jansch’s “Go Your Way My Love”, a lovely performance indeed.
 
Heather, dear Heather with the first [and only] nylon strung guitar, sang “So Far Away” about itinerant lovers – here we go! Then she gave us one of Harvey Andrew’s protest songs. It sounded compelling, but I still forgot to get the title of it – remiss of me, sorry.
 
Lisa [took her place, on the left to us] with Jason to her left [right to us], no matter, they were together and blended typically as one with their original songs tonight being: “Cat’s Cradle” and “South Eastern Breeze” – catch us if you can ….
 
Softly focussed Steph was well programmed to take us on through “Love Me Tender” and “Generations”, I think by Sammy Khan [but could be wrong, erm … generous hearts].
 
The first very thinly disguised love song, of the evening, was a good one composed by, and performed by Andy Melrose: “Fairground” from when time had seemed suspended during ‘Lockdown’ as the ‘night ghosts assembled on the streets’, it followed his : “73 Kites”, which was acutely observed from the 3-day-working-weeks of 1973 [Coal Strikes], ‘let them fly, let them fly – Set Them Free’ – love it [all of it c/w Kites]!
 
Jason came back, this time augmented by Helga on flute: “Love Me Two Times”, riffing on a vintage Martin guitar going through a Clover Preamp, as was I when I joined forces with Helga’s flute; taking the top line over my modally tuned baritone guitar [and I own up, I had minimally rearranged Bert Jansch’s DADGD arrangement of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ which, when I first learned it, was recorded as an instrumental].
 
Nelson King gave us a solo rendition of one of his album tracks [one of many, apparently], it had a strong rock groove: “Will the World Ever Dance Your Way?”, qualified as it was by ‘I’ve seen things to make you pray’ it led perfectly into his next, atmospheric rock groove: “I got It Wrong”, qualified again, ‘I got it wrong, there ain’t no doubt, the word is out’ – and it was!
 
Josie & Jim, were in attendance tonight, also. They treated us to: “The Legend of Uncle Jim”, a brilliant story about a legendary storyteller [anecdotally aka Seamus, as one of his alter-egos, I suspect, in real life] – ‘If the tales are good, it ain’t a sin; one helluva time you’ll have with UNCLE JIM’! Aha, not so thinly disguised, this next love-song: “Peacock Blue Dress” followed the Uncle Jim characterisation very nicely, I though/felt; ‘Dance in your Peacock Blue Dress, that flows like water around you – the one that you wore when we first met’, how about that, then. Spot on.
 
Mike Osborne, gave us a John Martyn song of typically mixes messages: ”I  Don’t Want To Know About Evil” – ‘I only want to know about love’ – Oh, the irony …. Mike gave it a summarily interesting, but dissonant guitar coda apropos the man [John had lived in Hastings as do Mike and myself; we know about ‘The Lord Nelson’ public house, in which Mr Martyn once thrived [and lived in]. Mike agreed to me entitling his second song “Copenhagen Coincidences”, he seemed to be happy enough with that in lieu of [Untitled]. Mike had met a Danish Debutante at one time, in Copenhagen – you’ve gotta hear it. Lightning does strike twice, sometimes!
 
Roy played us out, graciously at the piano. Thanx Roy.

Hosted by Jason

​“A few beautiful souls”
 
So, here we are, but a few beautiful souls
Singing our hearts out to anyone who shows
We care just about the music
And anyone who knows
What it is that reaches these few beautiful souls
 
So, here we were, but a few beautiful souls
Who is going to hear us, heaven only knows
We care just about the music
And don’t worry about who shows
For this is what makes us a few beautiful souls
 
And who will be there next for these few beautiful souls?
Why do we do this? Somebody must know.
There’s only one reason for the music
If its truly in your heart, it shows
Otherwise you’ll never be one of the few beautiful souls . . .
 
Jason, poet, June 2023
 
Thank you to Manus, Simon, Lance, Emma, Mike, newcomers on holiday Christine & Peter, Joseph, and Roy, for your wonderful performances.
 
It was a pleasure to host you all.