 23rd January 2018
Another Tuesday and a bunch of musicians turn up to play at the Six Bells Pub in darkest Chiddingly. It was my turn to be “in charge” of proceedings although as always, proceedings have their own ideas about that. Along with the usual suspects (you know who you are) it was nice to see Pat and Natasha. James the poet made an unexpected appearance and we had a return of Simon Scardanelli who has now moved into the locality. Particularly pleasing was a visit from Ivor Game who had driven from Watford just to play and was very much enjoyed. I started the evening determined that we would all get three songs, which we did. My opening song involved the Kazoo and even that failed to put people off, indeed, rarely for the winter we had an audience! Manus followed with a Jazzy version of Summertime, his own composition Ambivalence and then You are my Sunshine I guess this was Manus’s attempt to fight back against a cold, drab January. Natasha was next so we listened to her charming vocals and gentle guitar playing while she sang Clydewater and Lily of the West. Ivor Game, a singer songwriter, is a newcomer to the club and having travelled a long way to be with us I gave him an extended set. His short punchy songs quickly connected with the audience and we all enjoyed his performance. All the songs in his set are listed here, many with links to Youtube or Soundcloud; You Lovely You, Small, You’re the One, Together, Beautiful Umbrella, Water and Wine. Enjoy. Pat followed Ivor and she gave up Joe Hill and The Seed Man, both of these are great songs and beautifully sung unaccompanied. Time for our own resident singer songwriter Chris Martin who was also our soundman for part of the evening his homespun tunes were Ghosts, Tick Tock and View from a Window. Simon Scardanelli is a professional musician and it shows. If only we had time to focus exclusively on music maybe we could all match his confident delivery but I somehow doubt it. His songs are powerful and can be amusing.. Tonight’s offering included Whirlwind, Jesus and the Moon, and What Good is this old Guitar (a Hoya – Clapton owned one). Check out the Spotify links if you use that service. James is a poet but an English teacher he met in a pub told him “this is not poetry, its verse” - well that’s English teachers for you. Does anyone really care what the definition is? No, we just enjoyed the words and the poetic delivery and we gave that an A* (bollocks to English teachers). His poems, verses or whatever were 2017, Hot Tap and Beard. For those fed up with guitars we had reached a point in the evening when it was time for a change. Ella took to the piano and sang for us Who knows where the time goes, Danny’s All Star Joint (doink, doink) and Hurricane. Ella’s playing in particular was spot on this evening; she is getting some great sound out of the battered Six Bells piano these days. Clive started with Going up the Country, the Canned Heat classic, Where can I go without you, by Nina Simone and finished with his own composition “Runaround” which I thought had something of a 50’s vibe to it. Last but not least was Jason Loughran. Jason’s songs were The Heart of Saturday Night (Tom Waites), his own song A Little Soul and lastly a song by his dad, Jerry Loughran Blow Gentle Wind of Life. I am pleased to say that Jason will be standing in for Mike Aldridge who has to cut down on his performing due to problems with arthritis and other bone problems. We wish Mike well and hope he will be able to come along from time to time, even if he is unable to play. So, what of my three youtube videos? The first is one of the most beautiful songs on that platform, the second, a misplaced Christmas song, disproves that the Americans don’t get irony and the third is a really sweet gospel song that will make you want to hug a homeless person (obviously not the one with the dreads by the station or, thinking about it, the rather smelly one by the card shop, or the one with the mirror in front of him who spends all day looking up…….. Oh, forget it). All the best, Simon
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