A slightly unusual post this one, but a puff for the 'Come All Ye' which happens on the second Thursday of the month at the above pub in the wilds of Dorset. Through a curious chain of circumstances I met up with Chas Upton who runs the above get together, only 50 years or so after he ran the Grosvenor Folk Club, on the London Road in Bath, where we had many prestigious and charismatic guests, including Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, The Halyard, Cyril Tawney, Alex Campbell, The Strawberry Hill Boys (before they became The Strawbs), the Yetties, Fred Wedlock, and many more. The life of the front man, introducer, producer, MC, warm-up singer is not easy, but Chas did it well. He now has a fine group called Fippeny Piece and fronts the above mentioned Come All Ye. Having spent some of my first three years at medical school hosting and doing warm up for a folk club at International Students' House in London, I have felt the urge to get back on the road, so this was my first gig for quite a long time. For those interested I sang Lord Franklin's Expedition (Martin Carthy version) and a song by Ralph McTell called The Maginot Waltz. Remarkable how many truly talented people crawl out of the woodwork at events like this though - if I remember aright there were two fiddlers, four recorder players, one saxophonist, one autoharp player (last time I saw one of those Peggy Seeger was playing it), several bells, two bodhran, one bagpipes, one gaelic harp, a bass guitar, a tambourine and about four guitar/singer combinations. The Mummers turned up, and a good time was had by all. A few photos give you the feel of the occasion and I hope you can hear a typical reel with most of the players joining in:
Happy singing and Happy Christmas!
