Tuesday, August 25, 2009

San Francisco - Andy Roberts song by Maxime le Forestier

San Francisco by Maxime le Forestier has been a favourite for me to play for a long time now, I learned this song when I was staying with a friend in Poitiers, France in 1974. I used to play it in the Paris metro whenever somebody complained about me singing in English. Uploaded to Andyrobertsmusic account on youTube from the live session on Tuesday evenings at 7.00pm on uStream.tv

http://www.youtube.com/user/andyrobertsmusic

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/andy-roberts-music

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Singalong Night at Havering Folk Club

We had a good singalong session last night at Havering Folk Club with a good attendance, in fact Linda and I had to shuffle round a bit to find two seats together.

I took along my 12 string guitar of unknown origin in the big black bag but didn't get a chance to make sure it was in tune and warm it up until the interval. Being a bit later than usual to arrive, I was orginally put on the performers list at number 12 and ended up being the last act at the end of the second half. I played Norwegian Wood with the guitar and then put it down and sang unaccompanied to get the audience joining in with an a capella version of the old Cornish song, Going up Camborne Hill Coming Down

not much like this version below, but I like the steam engines

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Live Broadcasts Every Tuesday Night 7.00pm

Andy Roberts Live Broadcasts

I don't seem to have mentioned this here before but I've started doing live broadcasts every Tuesday evening at 7.00pm UK time. That's GMT + 1 at the moment, because of British Summer time, daylight saving.

The broadcasts usually last about half an hour or less but could be longer if I'm in the mood. That's about 5 songs. I've written more about it on my other blog here:

ustream.tv tuesday nights andy roberts music 7-00pm


and the actual link to watch the broadcasts and take part is here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/andy-roberts-music

So it's been three weeks now and I'm enjoying it already. I've let a few friends know about it and put out a little bit of publicity, but I'm really expecting the audience to grow very slowly week by week, and that's why I've set the time and day to be as regular as clockwork - every week on Tuesday at 7.00pm. Starting from nothing we've had a maximum number of live viewers at five, eight, and now twelve last night so it's a very small elite group attending this nascent online folk club. One even logged in and joined the chat last night which is a first apart from Linda who does her best to keep anybody company who might wander in. It's nice when somebody logs in and has a name and leaves comments instead of just being a number of invisible 'Guests'.

The nice thing about ustream as well, is that apart from the live viewers, you can also make recordings which are then kept on the site for posterity and can also be uploaded to youTube. So I'm building up a collection of very rough and ready videos with no editing, so sound production just raw footage from the webcam shows. What this lacks in quality is made up for by building a comprehensive collection of my repertoire, if I keep it up adding up to five new videos every week. Some will be duplicates of the same song of course, and I'll have to decide what to do about that.

I think I should probably simply list the songs played here each week, and link to the YouTube or Ustream video, and if I want to embed one or two because I have something to say about them, then I'll do that in a separate post named after the particular song.

So this week, last night August 18th, I played:

San Francisco - Maxime le Forestier
The Wreckers Prayer - Andy Roberts
Mazet - Andy Roberts
Don't You Grieve - Roy Harper
Captain Coulston - Traditional, Steeleye Span

The week before, August 11th it was

Motel Blues - Loudon Wainwright
Narrowboats - Andy Roberts
Blue - Andy Roberts
Highway Blues - Roy Harper ( Havering Folk Club version )
Winter in Andalucia - Andy Roberts

And the first week August 4th I sang

The Wreckers' Prayer - Andy Roberts
Hold On Below - Andy Roberts
Angi Variation - Bert Jansch
Grow Fins - Captain Beefheart

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Havering Folk Club 12th August

This Wednesday at Havering Folk Club we had to leave early because Linda was feeling quite unwell but the first half was very good. We're getting more visitors or new members from Romford Folk club on Tuesday nights now. These are people well known to some of the the Havering regulars but not to myself because I've never been to Romford Folk Club.

Anyway, the interesting thing about the songs I played this week was the reaction from a handful of my friends in the audience. My stuff usually goes down well but when four seperate people make a point of telling me they particularly enjoyed it this week then it makes me think about what differences there might have been in my performance this time to tip the balance. Maybe I played more like I do when I'm at home, a bit more relaxed improvisation or else they just like a bit of guitar playing instead of just songs. It was a quietly attentive audience, more so than some weeks so that may have had something to do with it, or just wondering why I got up to go home during the interval!

Luckily Linda managed to record the two songs on video before taking ill so I'll post them in under here.

Long Andy Roberts version of Colours by Donovan





Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out





Thursday, August 13, 2009

Wednesday 5th August Havering Folk Club

Wednesday 5th August was the turn of Bert Dady and Keith Petty to have a members featured evening and very entertaining it was too, with some favourite old folk songs well performed.

I played "Sitting on the Bank"

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