Simon's 60's Night

11th July 2017

This was a 1960’s theme night and except for Sylvie (who gave us a song from the 1760’s) all of the songs played were from that era. It was one of those relaxed inclusive evenings with a listening audience with some good humoured banter between audience and performers. While we were getting ready to start, Roy who likes to play the piano surreptitiously tinkled away with Le Roy Andersons “Forgotten Dreams” – but we were not supposed to notice that.

I started things off with the Monkey’s hit “D W Washburn” which most people had forgotten about so I have used that as the first of my video picks – see the homepage. I followed this with Van the Man’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and the Drifters “Save the last dance for me”. The last two songs accompanied by a newcomer Liz on Tambourine and the shaky egg thing. Far out.

Chris Martin then broke with his tradition of not doing covers (gasp) singing “Me & My Uncle” (Grateful Dead), “House of the Rising Sun” (Eric Burden & the Animals), this is my second homepage video and “Black magic woman”. Cool.

Clive then sang “Only the lonely”, not quite in the Roy Orbison key but a pretty good effort and “Ruby”. Clive was followed by Lloyd. This was Lloyd’s second outing at the 6 Bells and we hope to hear more of his deep voice. He chose the country ballad “Streets of Larado”, “If I only had time” and the Jim Reeves classic “He’ll have to go”. Right on.

Now it was time for some performers who were not around in the 60’s we had Tom (on guitar), Corin (harmonica) and Simon (organs various). They started with The Doors “People are strange” then Ben E. King’s “Stand by me”. Cosmic.

Tom, Corin and Simon then provided the backing group for Dave Dyke and the ensemble then sang the funky Elmore James song “Talk to me baby”. Dave then played two songs on his own, the Turtles “Happy Together” and Tim Buckley’s “Buzzing Fly”. Super.

Time for Terry. Terry Lees gave us the Stones “Route 66”, John Martin’s “Woodstock” and “Judy”, all with some very accomplished guitar work – his trademark. Following Terry was the turn of Sylvie our regular poetess, this time with a traditional 1760’s ballad “Far Away” sung unaccompanied. Groovy.

Manus then finished off the evening by taking us back to the Stones with “Honkytonk Woman” (see my video selection on the homepage) followed by “Don’t let the sun catch you crying” and “Summertime” the Wes Montgomery version from the 60’s filled with those jazz chords that only the truly deformed can play (or is that just jealousy on my part?). Way out.

We should also have had a song or two from Andy, a visitor camping nearby. He had asked me to put him on before 10:00pm, I remembered this too late and he had disappeared by the time he was called. I am very sorry about that Andy, maybe next time you are in the area? Bummer.

Liz and Peter tested singing with the mic at the end of the evening as we were packing up, I have a sneaky feeling we will see more of them in future. Next time Ella is running the evening so “be there or be square”.

So long pop pickers.

Simon