Happy 2020 – Our first session of the year!

On a very mild but rainy Tuesday we gathered in the pub ready to start a new year of music at the Six Bells Folk & Blues Club. I started with “Soft Spot” with a little help from Helga on flute and Martin on base. I followed this with a Tom Paxton song “When I go to see my son”. Having got the evening started I then introduced Mark.

Usually any problems with the sound system are remedied during the first couple of songs but sadly, for Mark this was not the case. His first song was Donovan’s “Guinevere” and the next was “Running for home” by Bert Jansch. Playing this was made almost impossible because the main speakers were powered down and all the sound came from the monitor. Fortunately Mark got another song later in the evening “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” a Rudy Toombs song from the 50’s which, with the gremlins ironed out, came across perfectly. Sorry Mark, but thanks for running the desk for the rest of the evening.

Next we had Chris who excited the audience by announcing that his next blockbuster album “Born Grumpy” is soon to be released. Counting the days Chris. His songs tonight were “On paper wings”, “Dangerous moonlight” and “Little red car”. I can hear the jingle of his PRS payments from here – ooooh aaaah.

Then it was Helga’s turn to shine and she sang us the only song she has ever written called “Monday morning lovecrash blues” (great title) followed by a slightly funky version of “Matty Goves” thanks to some guitar work from Keith with Ella on the bodhran.

More original music followed from Bob and Christy a bluezy song called “Love song” and then “Silent night” (no, not the carol), finally, in the second half of the evening they gave us the James Taylor song “You’ve got a friend” this was just the right song and the audience joined in.

Time for Ella - our only pianist of the evening. The songs she chose were Sandy Denny’s “Who knows where the time goes” and, because her grandson James was one today, “Rockabye sweet baby James”, the James Taylor song.

Clive next with what else but his annual rendition of the Abba song “Happy New Year” and then a song from Local Hero written by Mark Knoffler. Lastly, to finish the evening he sang the Emerson Lake & Palmers song “Lucky man”.

Keith is a great songwriter and musician, he gave us “Have you ever” and the slightly raunchy “Brighton rock” before being joined by Penny for “C C Rider” and “Walking blues”.
Heather ignored the heckling from Chris and sang us Melanie’s “Look what they’ve done to my song Ma” with plenty of joining in by the audience. Then Carole King’s “Will you still love me tomorrow”.

Finally Lance, another singer songwriter who had been patiently waiting his turn gave us “You’d better eat your vegetables or you won’t grow” (well it is Veganuary) and “Gardeners world”.  

Thanks again to Lance for the sound and Martin for the base line.

My videos - I have chosen a little Country with Rodney Crowell, Roseanne Cash and John Paul White. Some cool jazz from Postmodern Jukebox (nice) and lastly the little guy Lafka Gravis from Taxi’s (you remember, with Danny DeVito)  doing an imitation of Elvis Presley.

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