Curses at the Six Bells!

Mike Osborne

30th August 2022

The night was not one of the best attended of the year but although we lacked quantity, we made up for it with quality. My opening song featured a swearword (you know the one) so maybe this frightened people off. I started the ball rolling with a Danny Schmidt song “Beggars and Mules” followed by my own “I’ve got a Black Hole in my Garden”.

It was nice to see Oliver again and to hear his interesting guitar style. His songs were “All along the Watchtower”, “Amazing Grace” and later a great song by Donovan “Gold Watch Blues” about the standard reward for a lifelong job (gone are the days).

Chris was next and he was also in a sweary mood opening with his “Tuning Song” which he followed with a song he had just written called “Acoustic Blues & Me” and his last offering was “Sanity”.

A gradually recovering Heather then gave us a song of her own called “Being Me” and finished with a very pretty version of the Scottish ballad “Ye Banks and Ye Braes”.

When I arrived at the Bells, I was both surprised and delighted to see old friend and past Six Bells regular Mike Osborne waiting to perform. Mike is a very skilled musician who hails from Hastings. Mike gave us the blues classic “Come on in my Kitchen”, followed by “Love Train” (not the O’Jays soul song) and finally “Don't Want To Know”, the John Martyn song.

It was also nice to see Brenda again and she came up with an A ‘Capella version of the Bette Midler song “The Rose” and after that a poem “Dust if you Must”.

Terry Lees is always a very welcome addition to any musical event, and he gave us his own arrangement of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright” and another Scottish tune “Miss Mcleods Reel”, usually only attempted on the fiddle!

Lisa had allowed Jason out on his own and his songs were “End of the Waves”, the classic “Nobody Knows You” and his own “There was a Young Man, Namely”.

Our resident flautist Helga accompanied by Jason performed “The Blues is a Country” followed by a jam in Am with Terry.

John gave us some rock’n’roll with Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Every Move You Make” by The Police.

Finally, we had Sophie and Matthew who gave us a really great set of songs written by Sophie and not for the first time at a folk club I found myself wondering, why are these people not famous? The songs sung were “Storm Breaks”, “Down the Road” and “A Place to go Home”.

As the night wore on the audience dwindled leaving Jason and myself to pack away the gear for another two weeks. Next time, once again Jason will be running the club, so until then it’s goodbye from me, and its goodbye from him.
Simon

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