If John Harrison had only known what the evening had in store he would surely have kicked the 168th Folk Club Bonn off with ‘To a mouse’. The poem by Robert Burns that famously notes you can never safely organize anything with its observation: “The best laid plans of mice and men…” . We were well into part one of the evening and no guest stars. Serena Finnati and Andreas Varnier were nowhere to be seen or even reached for comment, which in todays hi-tech world is hard to believe. Easier to believe though, is that they were victims of today’s low-tech transport system and probably somewhere in a tailback on the infamous ‘Endenicher Ei’ or on any one of the many imaginative detours created by Bonn Council. So what happens when life gives you a lemon? Of course – you make lemonade! Consequently a Guest-starless evening of great music was had by all.
In the case of this fine Mayday evening ‘making lemonade’ meant a sizeable reorganization of the evening’s setlist. John Harrison of course remained cool as the proverbial cucumber, safe in the knowledge that Folk Club creates a life of its own sometimes and that at such times rather than run it, he can only run with it. His motto might even by now be “Folk Club Bonn is what happens whilst your making other plans!” If the organizers hadn’t planned for the unexpected then the spirit of Folk Club itself clearly had. Why else would we have the wonderful Rick Fines already down for just a couple of songs in advance? Why else would talented musicians of the calibre of Thomas Monnerjahn and Eric Linfoot spontaneously be here in the audience? Kismet or what?
Things started normally enough. John Harrison applauded King Charles III’s recent speech to congress for it’s finely tuned level of acerbic comment on current US activities that was refined with a fine sweet sugar-coating of wit and humour. “If not for us, you might all today be speaking french!”. Nice one Charles – and your Majesty you are heartily welcome to a floorspot here in Dotty’s! Musically, John presented three favourites at this time of year. Former Folk Club guest Martin Donnelly’s ‘The Green Man’, Dave Webber’s traditional ‘Hail! Hail! The first of May!’ and John’s own tribute to the Rhine’s duckworld ‘Zeppelina’.
Next up were The Beatles. Well, Carsten, Iris and Steffi actually call themselves The Molitones but my Wiki check tells me that Molitones are a form of beetle. Love was definitely in the air for the trio as they sang ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ and ‘Make You Feel My Love’. The final song ‘Tommi’ is also a love song of sorts – but a love for Cologne and was a perfect finger-clicking foot-tapping way to end their excellent set. The harmonies of Iris and Steffi were a ‘Genuss für die Ohren’. The perfect songs for everyone who set up a Maibaum with an X loves Y heart on it this year.
Caroline Bernotat and Peter Bachman have become popular regular performers of late and their popularity is well deserved. Although the songs they present are usually well known, the duo clearly put a lot of effort and thought into their presentations. They cleverly wove ‘Black Magic Woman’ into Caroline’s own composition ‘You Crept into my Life’ for example and in so doing fitted the number perfectly to tonights theme of ‘Magical Moments’. The two also perfectly wove the counter vocals of ‘Scarborough Fair/Canticle’ together which is deserving of applause in itself and especially poignant these days since the ‘Canticle’ part refers to an anti-war song that Paul Simon wrote in 1963 titled ‘On the side of a Hill’. It was one of the evening’s highlights for sure. It was also good to hear again a song from my childhood – ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’. It’s writer Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary fame) insists it has nothing to do with drugs and I refuse to believe a dragon would take such stimulants. Puff just said ‘No!’
Kai Hoffstetter had to cancel his appearance last month due to illness but he was back and very much on form with his typical Rhine/Main dialect contribution ‘Drunt an Mee’, which I’m guessing means ‘Below by the sea’. He did say it praised the start of Spring and whilst I couldn’t follow the lyrics I do take my hat off to Kai for following his less-travelled dialect path and finding a style all his own.
Mario Dompke brought with him a revitalized project in the form of Volkskapell. Together with Corinna Glück he set off to prove that German Folk Music has an important place in the chronicling of German Society just as much as better known English and American traditional songs have in their own respective Countries. They have just been sadly neglected after often being appropriated by Nazi Germany, and therefore no longer sung. In addition, much of the post 1945 generation had no appetite for local Folk Music traditions. Mario’s mission this evening with Corinna then was to dust down some familiar compositions, starting with the c.1770 song ‘Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär’ that started as a protest against the poverty that split families in search of work and was, later in war time, as Corinna remembers from her mother, much requested by families on the radio for soldiers seperated from family and other loved ones.
‘Horch, Was Kommt Von Draussen Rein’ and ‘Die Freie Republik’ completed an interesting set made even more memorable by Mario’s decision to leave his guitar at home and play this evening with banjo and Waldzither. The latter in particular lent a vintage feel since it was a very popular instrument around the late 19th Century.
As we know from so many examples, there is many a beautiful tune from the past waiting to be re-discovered (didn’t we just hear a 16th Century melody named ‘Scarborough Fair’?’) so hopefully there will be more to come from Mario and Corinna’s Volkskapell project as they delve deeper into the dust of those old traditional german folk melodies.
At this point in the proceedings John Harrison would normally announce the first spot for our star guests. They would make a grand entrance from the rehearsal room. There would be loud applause. Unfortunately, in the same order, He didn’t. They didn’t. There wasn’t. It was half-time, when, as all football fans know, lessons from the first half are learned and tactics for the second decided!
In Team Folk Club Bonn’s case they managed to pull two top-class substitutes ‘off the bench’ and decided on keeping another of our star players on right until the end. We even had a team ‘veteran’ to steady the proceedings. Current German Mens Football trainer Julian Nagelsmann would have been proud.
PART TWO
Seeing an owl and a pussycat together on a peagreen boat would of course count very much as a magical moment. John Harrison powered us into the second half with just such a vision, as dreamt up by Edward Lear. I venture to suggest that Lear might have come up with the idea after having a quiet smoke with Puff the Magic Dragon. Be that as it may, it’s still a British poetry classic. The linguistically minded might like to know that a ‘runcible spoon’ as referred to in the song doesn’t actually exist. I have my doubts about ‘bong trees’ too!
A quick mention of my own short contribution to the evening. ‘The Last Round-up’ is a nostalgic nod to that most glorious of television/film genres the western. I wrote it in the mid-1970’s when out of all the westerns on tv there was only one left – ‘Alias Smith & Jones’. This was as ill-fated as one of its stars, Pete Duel. When it finished so did tv westerns. ‘Gunsmoke’, ‘Wagon Train’, Lone Ranger’ and of course ‘Bonanza’ I salute (and miss) you one and all!
No, I wasn’t the team veteran referred to earlier in my report. That calming influence award goes unquestionably to Tom Kannmacher. Tom has been active in the Folk Blues scene since the mid-1960’s and has a love not just of the music but also the instruments behind it as can be seen tonight as he plays a guitar/ harp-lute. He has the resolute air about him of a milestone in a forest. No-nonsense, measured, assured, and immovable. The music that he presents is similarly authentic and clear; coming from a profound knowledge of old german songtexts
‘Auf Erden der Bauer keinen guten Tag’ covers the hardships of being a farmer in times gone by. Other professions weren’t much easier easier it would seem as shown by ‘Der Müller der Dieb’ (The thieving Miller). “In Böhmen liegt ein Städtchen” tells the story of a garrison town’s civil and military inhabitants torn by war. All three of Tom’s chosen songs are reminders, if any were needed, that things as they currently are in Germany are far better than they often have been. If last month’s Folk Club was heavily Blues with a capital ‘B’ then this month, with Mario/Corinna and Tom Kannamacher’s performances, it was definitely a shift into Folk music with a capital ‘F’.
So Tom Kannamacher was our veteran player to keep things calm on the pitch with still no sign of our guest stars. Now it was time to bring on the top-class substitutes. Well, actually, Thomas Monnerjahn and Eric Linfoot weren’t actually even on the bench to start this evening. Both had come along on the night just to hear the music of others. Instead, they bravely stepped into the breech at no notice whatsoever to play a couple of numbers and indeed, only minutes before performing, were to be found outside the concert room rehearsing their hastily written set-list. So there was Thomas, used to a nylon strung flamenco guitar, taking on John’s heavy guage steel-stringed Dreadnought, whilst Eric was calling up song texts from his cellphone. How could they possibly pull this off with zero warning?
Well, they DID pull it off. So well in fact that the dynamic duo ended their set with thunderous applause and were called back for an encore. How did Thomas speed around the fretboard so deftly for ‘All of Me’ on those thick strings? If I’d still been wearing the ‘cowboy’ hat I borrowed from John earlier I would have taken it off and bowed my head. How did Eric manage to keep up and not get tripped up by the lyrics flying up at him from his cellphone?. Thomas proved to also be adept at playing classic blues, although he did tell me later that he too grew up enjoying blues masters like Stevie Ray Vaughan. They did of course also have Bonn’s Bluesmaster on hand so it was a real pleasure when John Harrison joined the duo for ‘Stormy Monday Blues’ and followed the evenings theme of ‘magical Moments’ in both music and deeds.
Just when the fearless duo of Monnerjahn and Linfoot could finally relax, they realised we all wanted to hear more. ‘Manha de Carnaval’ was the answer. There was even room for comedy as Eric played with the lyrics and came out with “I’ll sing whilst he plays his guitar” to laughter and applause which said it all about the duo’s contribution this evening. They came to just listen to others play but Eric ended up singing to Thomas’s guitar – and the rest is history. Folk Club history. Not something out of nothing. Something out of the Folk Club spirit that Thomas and Eric perfectly embodied. Yes. Magic moments indeed.
By this time the missing star guests were completely forgotten; but we still had a big chunk of their missing set to replace. Enter the Team Folk Club Bonn star player initially meant to fire the evening up before returning to the bench in readiness for the big game coming up… Rick Fines was initially pencilled in for a 2-3 song floorspot and a chance to ‘plug’ his own concert coming up at the Kulturbad in Rungsdorf on 9 May. Like Thomas and Eric though he happily stepped in and extended his planned set to fill in the gap. Well, ‘fill in the gap’ would be understatement of the year.
I had Rick mentally pencilled in as a main guest star from his very first appearance at Folk Club. He has such a disarmingly easy performance style that it’s very easy to overlook the calibre of his self-penned set. Indeed, when I wrote my own song ‘Last Round-up’ in the late ’70’s it was just such witty, clever writing that I was aiming for – and I still am. Rick seems to find that style with such natural ease. His opener ‘Laundry on the Line’ could easily have come from the pen of the great John Prine and no-one would have been surprised. Stark, simple storytelling that mixes cold narrative observation with a deep emotional core as in the simple but heart-tugging line:
“He looked again at her favourite chair
and there she sat.
No longer there”
The second number was a quintessential Rick Fines offering. ‘Coffee, One Cream’ incorporates Rick’s best Blues licks along with his Satchmo vocalising and, of course, as the veritable cream on the coffee, a vocal trumpet solo. He even managed to link it to tonight’s them with the observation that “It’s a magical moment when I get my first coffee of the day!” . With ‘My Mistake’ Rick recognizes music as a healer. A song written about a failed affair that, by the time it was completed, gave him the reason for its failure. ‘My Mistake‘ was the title and the reason.
Folk Club Bonn has had some kind words said about it in the past by visitors. Most famously Simon Kempston’s assertion that it’s the best Folk Club outside of Scotland. Rick’s praise tonight was equally appreciated – describing the Club as a place where people listen to music, enjoy each others company, work on presenting their songs together – and no harm is done! On the contrary, the world seems a better place when you go out the door afterwards. But let’s not put our coats on yet, we still have some more time in no-harm land…
‘Half Full Cup’ is a song born out of Rick’s visit to a Psychiatry course in Ontario and the result is a love song of sorts – Well, the sort of love song a psychiatrist might write anyway. As he points out – after only three verses his mother crept into the narrative. I wonder what success as a folksinger Freud might have had? The evening’s last song from Rick was a far more natural love song. That of a man for a car. Chuck Berry’s original of ‘No Money Down’ rattles along with a bar-room piano style. I actually prefer Rick’s smoother, bluesier take on it.
Five excellent songs in all then from Rick Fines. If, like me, that short set left you wanting more then visit Rüngsdorfer Kulturbad on May 9 MORE DETAILS HERE
So here we are. The end of Folk Club Bonn #168 and, as Rick rightly pointed out, no harm was done. What could have been a disaster when the star-guests failed to arrive actually didn’t matter at all. People listened to the music of others, played music of their own, and enjoyed the evening. Long may it continue.
