Beginning August Havering and Romford Folk Club

Let's see now where are we.... The last entry here was for HFC on 21st July and since then I've done two podcasts, episode 4 the Loudon Wainwright Special and episode 5 on Folk Music, missed a week at Havering when I was still in central London due to a trackside fire at Romford, and last week made a first appearance at Romford Folk Club on the Tuesday, right after the podcast, which is not to be confused with Havering folk club which is also in Romford.

Both folk club events were member's special nights which I didn't want to miss.

Romford Folk Club

Clive and Linda aka Ploughman's Lunch guested at Romford Folk Club which is held every Tuesday downstairs at the Sun pub, not all that far from the Golden Lion really.

THE SUN
Address: 47 London Road
Romford Essex
RM7 9QA

Since Clive and Linda sing mostly traditional agricultural folk songs I played one of my own that's kind of in that style, The Rowan Tree

So it was the first time I'd ever been to that venue, due to Tuesday's not being a good night fr us usually, but it was interesting that we managed to get there after the podcast show finished at home around 7.30 and arrive in Romford and find the place still in plenty of time before the evening kicked off.

Havering Folk Club

Wednesday 3rd of August was a special members night for Phil Duffield which gave him a chance to show a wider repertoire than we normally hear from him. There was a new song Phil has written as a proposed new national anthem for Wales, which is a fine ambition to have, and the song certainly has a lot of potential become something like that with the right sort of take up.

I played a song of my own which Phil has asked me to make sure I do a bit more often so this was the perfect opportunity, the song is called "The Dream is Over" and here's the video taken with Linda's new camera:

Wednesday March 31st Havering Folk Club

Wednesday March 31st Havering Folk Club

Open Night, 2 Andy Roberts songs

The Rowan Tree



The Last Nail

Back In The Field - Norwegian Wood - Wreckers Prayer

That was a whole week ago, so I'm getting behind with blogging the weekly songs which makes it more difficult to remember.

So the date was Wednesday 10th March at Havering Folk Club and the songs I played last week were Back in The Field and Norwegian Wood.

If I remember correctly there was also time for one last song at the end of the evening and I played The Wreckers Prayer.

Not to self: Must be more prompt when writing up these music blogs. According to youtube I seem to have played The Rowan Tree recently as well and that may well be a missing week.

Havering Folk Club Halloween Night

Havering Folk Club likes to celebrate Halloween Night on the nearest Wednesday so this year it was on October 28th 2009. Some people dress up, most probably, but Linda and I were neither prepared nor really in the mood for costumes so we came as ourselves :-)



Last year's Halloween Night event was choreographed by the Hillbilly Express and this year was similar but even more chaotic, with Simon and Pep dual MCing.

Music and Poetry....


Having already rehearsed The Rowan Tree at the beginning of the month without video capture I was prepared to have another go especially for Halloween night and this was after my version of Loudon Wainwright's Be Careful There's a Baby in The House.

The Rowan Tree Folk Song

The Rowan Tree

Last Week at Havering Folk Club I tried out a new song called "The Rowan Tree" which is a song about four witchee witches I wrote when I was in Scotland recently. There really is a rowan tree in my front garden which I planted myself some years ago and it is a matter of folklore that the Rowan tree is supposed to help keep witches away. It's a suitable topic for the Halloween night session coming up later in October but I thought I'd give it an airing first, and the feedback was very encouraging. You can never tell with a new song if the initial enthusiasm is going to die away to nothing or if it's going to become a lasting part of the repertoire. There wasn't a video from the Havering Folk Club performance but we do have a recording from the previous Tuesday night session which was a lively one too. Here's The Rowan Tree video:



The lyrics to the Rowan Tree have been posted both on the Andy Roberts blog and on the youTube video so there's no need to reproduce them here.

Deep River Blues

Earlier at the session I played my version of "Deep River Blues" and then afterwards, John from Foxen showed me the proper chords :-)

I play it in C for some reason:



Next week it's the turn of Smolowik to have his members featured evening at Havering Folk club so I'm looking forward to that.