The theme of Folk Club Bonn meeting number 165 was ‘Partytime’. In retrospect it should have been ‘Sing-a-long Night’. A plethora of neatly typed lyric sheets arrived on the tables at Dotty’s well before the evening started. Obviously quite a few musicians had spotted that we had a choir on the list tonight – not that the extra trained voices were needed. Folk Club audiences have always subscribed to the simple rule of singing along and keep changing your key until the people around you stop staring in your direction. It always works for me anyway.
John Harrison‘s opening triplet was ‘Pamela Brown’, ‘Derby Ram’ and ‘Black Bottom’. Well, Tom T Hall’s song does include the line “I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown – all of my goodtimes and all my roaming around” which is sort of Partytime. But ‘Black Bottom’? and, in its many verses, ‘The Derby Ram’ is never descriobed as a party animal.
Despite also being a part of the Folk Club Committee, Hans Ihnen also didn’t take the theme to heart. Aided by Anje on violin. She usually plays in a Classical music style but did a great job ‘switching’ to Country with ‘Tennessee Waltz’ and really had to maintain a marathon ‘fiddle’ for the evening’s first highpoint – ”Rattlin’ Bog’.
A traditional Irish composition, it’s one of those songs that builds verse by verse, and Hans made the mistake of asking after after seven verses if we wanted him to continue. Who could turn down the chance to hear him finally get a dry tongue around the final verse?:
“On the tick there was a rash
A rare rash, a rattlin’ rash
And the rash on the tick
And the tick on the louse
And the louse on the hair
And the hair on the worm
And the worm on the feather
Feather on the bird
Bird in the egg
Egg in the bird
Bird in the nest
Nest on the limb
Limb on the branch
Branch on the tree
And the tree in the hole
And the hole in the bog
And the bog down in the valley-o”
This was not one to sing along to, but John Hay‘s choices were, helped by some of those printed lyric sheets mentioned earlier – even though there seemed to be so many Zaz fans in the audience that the cheatsheets weren’t really necessary. ‘Champs Elysees’ and ‘JeVeux’ (sadly without an attempt to copy Zaz’s mouth trumpet sounds in the chorus).
Shay McVeigh always manages to both hypnotize me with his understated style of delivery, and impress me with his song choices. This time he even delivered a long joke concerning a drone and a squirrel that kept being disturbed by a football that was used to try and hit the drone in a tree – well, you have to hear the joke… But, as reported, I like Shay’s eclectic song choices. Richard Thompson’s ‘Bright Lights Tonight’ had a definite Bob Dylan slant to it. Both Hoyt Axton’s ‘I Dream of Highways’ and ‘Dust’ by The Dead Tongues’ are new songs to me, but as always, Shay had me running down the originals online when I got online later. Shay is a regular musical visitor to the Fiddlers in Endenich, so check out his set next time you visit and he’s playing. You won’t be disappointed.
Mario Dompke might arguably have looked at the theme for this month, his songs at least involved some party favourites – Bier and, in the Summer at BBQ’s anyway, Thüringer Bratwurst. Finishing off, as many a partytime is also apt to do, with ‘Trunkenheitslied’ (drunken song). Perhaps I should be fairer and say that Mario actually captured todays ‘Partytime’ theme in spirit since all three songs had a Carneval style tune and the audience were happily singing along without a lyric cheatsheet in site.
You might have noticed that I’m running through quite a list of performers. I forgot to mention that this was a ‘Singers Night’ meaning that there is no firm guest star but instead more short spots. On that level, Jutta Mensing‘s spot was shortest of all – with just the one song ‘Wenn die Bettelleute Tanzen’. Having tried out two keys that had eyes watering from some of those trying to sing along, Jutta found her stride, and a suitable key that had everybody joining in.
Kai Hofstetter played a Blues with a difference – ‘Goethe’s Blues’ – not written by the German literary legend himself I hasten to add. Another Blues with a twist followed – ‘Mitm Deifl Verabredt’. If you’re German is good enough and you stare at that title long enough you will see it: ‘Meeting with the Devil’ it says. At a crossroads of course. But in a small German town rather than a long American highway. The ending, either way, is not going to be a happy one. Two more self-penned numbers from Kai ‘In Harrbach an der Schleuse’ and ‘Der Steff, der Sascha und ich’ completed an interesting set. One day I must ask Kai where he lives as I’ve never heard of any of his song locations.
What/who have I missed? Well, there was of course that excellently tuneful corner of the room during the sing-a-longs where members of the Irish Folk Choir were seated – all thirteen of them. Their number also helped fill the room up to a point where two people even balanced precariously on the piano stool to listen. So yes, Irish Folk songs. ‘Star of County Down’ is one I know and the final ‘Will you go lassie go’ I know from numerous sources, my favourite being the instrumental outro provided by Gary Moore on Thin Lizzy’s ‘Black Rose’ album. The choir’s version was of course somewhat less aggressive in it’s delivery. ‘Eileen Og’ and ‘Farewell to Carlingford’ were sandwiched in between and musically very tasty too! I had to almost squeeze myself against the patio doors at the back to get the whole choir into my camera viewfinder, but that was my only moment of feeling anything other than relaxation listening to the harmonies.
A quick shout out to Wolfgang Schriefer, the Folkclub poet-laureate for his short verse regarding the fun and anticipation to be had from travelling to Bonn Folk Club. Well, happy anticipation I can agree with. He did manage to make delayed trams and re-routed buses seem like a happier experience than I can relate to though!
Oh yes, we sort of did have a guest spot, Rick Fines. We’ve had some talented Canadians down at Bonn Folk Club over the years. We have another one I’m very glad to say. Rick has moved to Plittersdorf recently and I hope he makes Bonn his home for a very long time. What a wonderful tale he told to weave his way into ‘You are my Sunshine’. Mississippi John Hurt being expected to play the Blues because he was a black American in the ’60’s. Many of the tours that brough over black musicians like Hopkins, Son House and Sonny Boy Williamson were actually titled as Folk music tours. John Harrison did a wonderful interview some years ago with the late Chris Barber who arranged these tours in Britain. ‘You are my sunshine’ played at a bleakly slow pace with bleak verses is certainly sad enough to be a Blues as Rick demonstrated – it just isn’t in a Blues style.
‘I got a leak in this old building’ from Lightnin’ Hopkins certainly was Blues all the way and a new one for me to hunt down online later. Best song of the evening though had to be a humourous nod to the old saying about someone “Living the life of Riley” (Living a perfect life). Rick took to contemplating about the said Riley maybe not being happy about someone else taking away his idealistic lifestyle – hence the song ‘Riley wants his life back’. Brilliant stuff indeed! Now we just need to talk Rick into a guest-spot and out of ever wanting to move away from Bonn…
Reading this all back, it sounds like a long evening. Like any evening that has so much happening in it though it really all shot by. Jock Stuart in fact took everybody by surprise. Was it really 10 pm? We were all living the life of Riley!
