Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

"Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" is the title of the song by Loudon Wainwright which I sang at Havering Folk Club on Wednesday 20th as part of a new series featuring tributes to recently deceased musicians. Loudon Wainwright is still alive (at the time of writing), this was in memory of Kate McGarrigle



On the video clip, there's also the main part of another song, "Waiting" which is an old Andy Roberts song.

Foxen Night at Havering Folk Club

Last Night was the turn of Havering Folk Club regulars Foxen also known as John and Margaret to take the stage for the members special night. This was the event postponed from last week because of a flooded cellar at the Golden Lion, Romford where Havering Folk Club meets every Wednesday at Eight.

The first thing to notice was the large array of assorted instruments they brought with them to accompany their polished duets. John's hand made six string guitar sounded particularly fine, and he also treated us to 12string guitar, mandolin, banjo and concertina while Margaret made beautiful sounds from a hammer dulcimer, bowed psaltery, autoharp and percussion. The choice of songs was spot on with many own compositions and one or two traditional tunes added into the mix.

I think there were also 16 floor spots altogether so in preparation for my own Andy Roberts Night on April 1st, I was taking notes of the evenings timing to give me a rough idea of what to expect. I think they ended up doing 35 minutes in the first half and ended up with a 40 minutes set after the break, which sounds like a long time but even after carefully planning and timing each song they still had to drop one or two from the setlist.

Floor singers obviously only had time for one song each so I played Waiting on the 12 string.