Yellow Boat, Yellow Taxi

Another week at Havering Folk Club, my last before the refurbishment at The Golden Lion. Will it be the same when we come back in February?

I played Yellow Boat (My own song) and Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi







After the break there was time for one more and I sang Loudon Wainwright's "I Am The Way"

Back in The Field The Dream is Over

Back at Havering Folk Club after a break in Spain for the holidays I played two of my own songs:

The Dream is Over



and

Back In The Field

John Lennon Day at Havering Folk Club

John Lennon Day at Havering Folk Club




Loudon Wainwright’s “Not John” followed by “Working Class Hero” written by John Lennon performed at Havering Folk Club on December 8th 2010 by Andy Roberts.

Later there was time for one more and I played "Bird On A Wire" by Leonard Cohen.

Beatles - A Day In The Life - Bungalow Bill at HFC

Last time I made it to Havering Folk Club I played two Beatles songs, "A Day In The Life" and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"

A Day In The Life - Beatles

Bungalow Bill - Beatles

Then there was time for one more after the break so I sang one of my own songs, The Wreckers Prayer.

The Wreckers Prayer

Camborne Hill : Ca Sert A Quoi?

Wednesday 17th November, an ordinary singers' night at Havering folk club but they did have some special Cornish beer on tap which meant I had to sing in French. So here's "Ca Sert A Quoi?" written by Maxime le Forestier:



It was late in the evening, almost the end in fact, and then my guitar strap broke. So I put it away and sang unaccompannied or acapella as it's sometimes known. "Going up Camborne Hill Coming Down" is a good old Cornish sing song staple, more often heard in rugby clubs, late night drinking sessions or ex-pat reunions than at folk clubs but it does have a serious side, commemorating the historic first ever steam engine ride on Christmas Eve 1801 by Richard Trevithick, the Cornish engineer. I don;t get all the words exactly right, but the beauty of this is how quickly people who've never heard the song before can pick it up and join in.

Crownstreet at HFC & How Does it Feel

I didn't make it to Havering Folk Club last night, we sneezed a lot and didn't feel up to it, but the week before ( Wednesday 3rd November) was a good one with Crown Street as the guests. I'd link to their own site if I could find it. Have you ever heard a folk saxaphone section? Lots of other instrumentalists as well, and a fine old Martin guitar.

I wanted to play my newly learned version of Roy Harper's "How Does it Feel" so my guitar was open tuned down to C, and it's a long enough song anyway to just do the one.



* Found Crownstreet now.

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:

Havering Folk Club July 21st 2010

Havering Folk Club July 21st 2010

I went along to Havering Folk Club last Wednesday after a week away on holiday and tried to do a vesrion of one of the new songs I haven't finished yet. I know It didn't work out very well, partly because I don't have the lyrics memorised yet and I tried reading from a crib sheet on the music stand, which has never worked out for me in past and probably never will. I can sing and play at the same time, sometimes I can sing, play and read at the same time, but not it seems in front of an audience, standing up and without reading glasses. So I've uploaded the podcast versions of the unfinished songs to youTube instead. The one called "Untitled 1" in the episode 3 shownotes is provisionally called "Trevellas" now, and unfinished 2 is called "Summerhouse" but I also have a plan for combining the two songs into one single work that would be longer and more complex. We'll have to see.

Sitting On The Bank

To recompose my composure, finding myself with a capo on fret 4 I decided on the spur of the moment to sing "Sitting on the Bank" which is a simple song I wrote when I was about 15 or 16 and thinking about leaving home soon. While uploading I noticed that the melody is developing slightly even now, I'm not sure it's correct to call it a revival though, as it's never really been out of the repertoire.

The Mighty Quinn

After the break and with the list of floor singers completed there was a little time left and Pep kindly asked me to do another, so after 3 pints I decided to do a singalong that everybody knows though it turned out not everybody at Havering Folk Club knows that the Mighty Quinn was a Bob Dylan song. The Manfred Mann cover version was better known in the UK in 1960s and afterwards.

Quake and Tremble

It was Dave and Linda Worley's members' night at Havering Folk Club last night, Wednesday 7th July and despite the football on TV, a good crowd turned out.

I took along my six string guitar and played a couple of songs to start off the second half, after the break. Linda's camera battery failed again so I don't have any fresh video capture of that particular performance but I can post alternative versions from my ever growing collection on youTube in order to maintain the record of which songs were performed when.

Yellow Boat

If I had a Yellow Boat I'd sail it to St Martin's
Moor it off the white sand bay
Bobbing in the turquoise sea

Wonderwall

Wonderwall is a very famous song from Mancheser band Oasis, in the 1990s

The Same Old Rock

last week I took my 12 string guitar along to Havering Folk Club and at the last minute decided to play a version of Roy Harper's The Same Old Rock, just because I felt like it. Tis my favourite song after all. Not my best rendition ever, but I enjoyed myself anyway.

May 26th People are strange, When the Waters Rise

May 26th at Havering Folk Club ( HFC ) after missing a week for no particular reason.

People Are Strange - The Doors

A cover of the Doors song People Are Strange

When The Waters Rise

When The Waters Rise

San Francisco

After the interval at Havering Folk Club there was time to do one more song each and I decided to play San Francisco the song by Mazime Le Forestier

May 5th - Golden Brown

On May 5th 2010 I played my version of Golden Brown by the Stranglers, at Havering Folk Club for the Hillbilly Express members night.

21st April Mazet

On Wednesday 21st April at Havering Folk Club I talked a little bit about Paris and the cafe Mazet then played the song named after the bar

Mazet - Andy Roberts music and lyrics

Northcountry girl

This video is in fact from another occasion because I kind of messed up last week and forgot one and a half verses, not sure why that happened exactly, just a bit unprepared I suppose.

Wednesday March 31st Havering Folk Club

Wednesday March 31st Havering Folk Club

Open Night, 2 Andy Roberts songs

The Rowan Tree



The Last Nail

Truro Agricultural Show

My version of "The Truro Agricultural Show", a traditional Cornish folk song, with a knocked about archtop guitar at Havering Folk Club last night, Wednesday 24th March 2010.

Interestingly four seperate people made enquiries to me about the origins of the song, having some sort of Cornish connections.

The lyrics are published earlier on the Andy Roberts music blog somewhere down there...

The Last Nail

The Last Nail is the title of my latest new Andy Roberts song, it's a folk song ballad sea shanty whatever that laments the closing of a boatyard inspired by the story of St Monan's in Fife, Scotland where I spent some time recently.

Hers is the video of the first live performance of The Last Nail at Havering Folk Club on Wednesday March 17th, St Patrick's Day as it happens.



These are the Lyrics to The Last Nail:

Above the stone walled harbour, or down the winding hill
That's where they built the boatyard, and the structure stands there still.
Not much boat building happens now, just repairs and fitting out
but when the wind rattles the boatmasts, you can hear the old boatbulders shout:
Will you pass the last nail over and I'll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she'll be ready for the race.

Our grandfathers put up the boatyard, to build the fishing fleet,
more than fifty boats in the harbour, and shops all down the main street
then the steam age brought in the drifters,
boat builders became engineers
Now the wind blows straight through the boatyard,
there'll be no more boat building here
Will you pass the last nail over and I'll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she'll be ready for the race.

With a keen eye for staying in business, they switched over to build leisure craft
And the weekend yachtsmen snapped them up, no expense spared fore or aft
Then wooden hulls went out of fashion, the order book emptied last year
So the bankers foreclosed on the boatyard,
and there'll be no more boatbuilding here
Will you pass the last nail over and I'll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she'll be ready for the race.

Now the Vikings invented the clinker for both strength and shallow seas
and the herring boats followed the coastline, until the canning ships found the key
There's a regatta here every August, and the whole village turns out again
But the Sea Queen's no real competition, and it's guaranteed to rain
Will you pass the last nail over and I'll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she'll be ready for the race.

Above the stone walled harbour, or down the winding hill
that's where they built the boatyard, and the skeleton stands there still.
No more boat building happens now, not even fitting out
but when the wind rattles the boatmasts, you can still hear the old boys shout:
Will you pass the last nail over, we'll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she'll be ready for the race.

Listening to the 12 string Guitar

last week it was the turn of Simon Oliver to have a member's featured evening at Havering Folk Club, and he borrowed my vintage Guild 12 string guitar for a few numbers which gave me the chance to sit in the audience and hear what it sounds like, unamplified, in the medieval pub room upstairs at the Golden Lion, Romford. Sounded pretty good to me, Well done Simon.

I played "The Nutmeg Tree"

Playing the Saz at Havering Folk Club HFC

Last week I finally got around to taking my SAZ along to Havering Folk Club. It had been lying around sadly out of tune for months and then I managed to wrestle it back on form and tried out a few tunes on the Tuesday Night Show. There's a long story about how I bought the SAZ in Turkey and brought it back, the story used to live on a wiki of its own but now should be available on a blog post somewhere, I'll dig it out and link to it later. Anyway, in order to take the fragile instrument out on a journey I had to first give it a bit of s clean up with furniture polish and stuff, then figure out a way to make it fit in a guitar bag. The Saz is a long necked lute and a bout two inches longer all told than a 12 string guitar, but with a tear drop shaped bowl instead of a guitar body. I found that I could just get it into my biggest guitar case, the one I bought for the 12 string, sideways on and with a bit of strain on the zip.

On arriving at Havering Folk Club, upstairs in The Golden Lion pub, Romford, I was pleased to find teh Saz was still in tune and signed up for a floor spot.

I played a tune which I call "Istankoy" and then another which segues into a version of Buddy Holly's Rave On.

Istankoy is in fact the Turkish name for the island known as Kos in Greek.

Istankoy

Rave On

The House Is An Allegory For The Mind

Here's a song called "The House Is An Allegory For The Mind" which is explained in the video to some extent. This was Wednesday 10th February, an open night at Havering Folk Club, and the second song is Down Drinking at the Bar by Loudon Wainwright.



There was even a spot left in the second half so I played Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene

Andy Roberts sings Close Your Eyes by James Taylor

Andy Roberts sings Close Your Eyes by James Taylor at Havering Folk Club. Video by Linda for Andy Roberts Music channel on youTube.