Review by Tim Almond...
Margaret
Second time again…
Some things just seem to come round… when the Fab Club started in February of this year I got the task of reviewing the second session… and now it has re-started after the summer break… and here I am at session two, pen in hand… Am I a perpetual silver medallist I wonder?
If the previous session won a gold medal for the warmth and brightness of the afternoon outside, this was a distinctly tarnished bronze – well... grey actually. So it was just as well that our compere for the day was Margaret: not a grey bone, cell or hair in her body – just a banjo-ukelele and tapping feet to set us on the way with two singalong numbers.
But… I couldn’t help detecting that, for all the lightness of rhythm and tone, there was a lurking undergrowth to her song of murder and abuse… men threatening ladies with knives at their breast and similar dark machinations on rustic riverbanks… maybe that is what folk music is about!
And maybe it was the horror of the underlying story that made Margaret momentarily confuse us by calling for Mick when she meant Mike… but the ever sharp Claudine was quick to heckle a correction from the audience… and Mike Parrot was up next to give the first ever performance of a twenty-year old song – ‘All I want is you’. His manner was nicely relaxed, given such an expectation… and he was encouraged not to wait twenty years for a repeat! This was followed by his Fab Club song – a welcome reminder of the impact the club has had in its brief existence. Perhaps, given the ‘live’ and continually developing nature of the club, we can expect another Fab Club song by the end of the year…a challenge to all our songwriters!
Mike...
Next up was Jo with two numbers. The first, called ‘Shallow Ground’ was a reflective song which, as ever with her calm delivery, compelled us to listen, followed by something unusual (except that Jo so often produces the unusual that it is almost usual…) the old 60s number ‘Walk on by’ sung unaccompanied… and, in my opinion, losing nothing thereby. Thanks Jo!
Tim Almond
I was then beckoned to the stage and, after shamelessly plugging my forthcoming Leprosy Mission gig (September 18!) I sang Dougie Maclean’s ‘Talking with my father’ and one of my own songs, written several years ago after a holiday in the
Then came Helen, with her round voice and straightforward guitar, first with a traditional song – Black is the Colour – and then which I think often sounds like a traditional song – Sting’s ‘Field of Gold’. Again, there was a lurking pessimism in Helen’s set… I caught the haunting phrase ‘suffer death a thousand times’… maybe the grey weather was affecting our song selection this afternoon!
Helen
Time for a first… a new perfomer to the club, called Glen, playing a lefthanded guitar, sat on the stool and performed two numbers . He didn’t introduce either of them, and they were not songs I knew so may well have been his own composition… and were accompanied by some very interesting guitar work taking advantage of de-tuning and ‘off-chords’ (and my apologies if there’s no such word… but there is now!)
Glen
Margaret then had to ad lib whilst we waited for the next act to vacate the loo… our very own Mick and Nora. Mick apparently had a problem with his trousers… and had come straight from a six mile run so needed to sit down… One of the fascinating things about this duo is guessing what combination of instruments they will have with them… today it was Nora on guitar and Mick on mandolin for both numbers with, as ever, plenty of encouragement for us to join in. They have such an ‘easy on the ear’ quality that the thought flashed through my mind that they could call themselves Jackanory rather than Mick and Nora… Sorry! Just a thought…
Mick and Nora... or Jackanory...???
Time to chat, refill, check raffle tickets etc… before John New set us off again lifting both the tempo and the volume. Today he had an accordion (another first at the Fab Club) and gave us two swirling Morris tunes – Towersey Fair and Redwing (I think he said) whilst demonstrating that it is anatomically possible to play the squeezebox and dance at the same time… eat your heart out John Kirkpatrick…
John x 3... well... he was dancing!!!
Rocking Bob followed and, as ever, sang the songs that are so obviously part of him… ‘million dollar baby’ and ‘have I told you lately that I love you’. Like John, he dances as he sings: I’ve often suspected, from many years of watching musicians perform, that the best instrumentalists play their instrument – whatever it is – with their whole body, not just their hands or mouth…
By the way, did anyone else notice that Bob’s guitar has five white pegs and one black one? It’s surprising (and sad) what you look at when you’re writing reviews…
Bob
Then came Joe Migdal… known to most of us but not a regular at the Fab Club. I hope he corrects that latter condition, because his guitarwork is intricate, impressive and nicely understated, supporting the narrative and emotion of the lyric not merely demonstrating technical prowess. He sang ‘Black Jack Davy’ and his own composition ‘Nature’s Wonderland’, about the Isles of Scilly, the title track from his CD – which, on this evidence, should be well worth hearing.
On both songs the guitar accompaniment was complete: there was never a sense of any other instrument being missing – melody, counter melody, harmony and bass were all there in a compelling mix.
Joe Migdal
Either of Us
Either of Us followed… first with a reggae influenced version of Claudine’s ‘I hate your smoke’, which gave me the chance to (for once) control things as I had to give the signal as to when to finish the instrumental break… and I nearly forgot! Another Dougie Maclean number next – ‘
Mark
Mark Reed was still recovering from flu and laryngitis… so he was excused singing but happily stretched his fingers over the nylon strings for ‘Two-way walking’ and ‘Classical jazz’. Both pieces, indeed, were jazzy in flavour, with lots of slip notes and requiring a very strong right hand technique…
Now it was raffle time… and in a shameless attempt at bribery I won the wine! (the lengths some folk will go to to get a good review…)
Ron
One more act… and something impromptu and unrehearsed as our Claudine persuaded Ron (normally heard at the Old Oak in Romford) to join her for a version of Hotel California… and then, all too soon, our time was up…
Was it a typical Fab Club? Dunno… not sure that such a thing exists… as so often there is something different… a new perfomer, a new style, a different genre from one session to the next. Plus, there is always a variety. My personal favourites today were John’ accordion and Joe’s guitar… but another time it will be someone and something else… and others will have different ideas… Mmmm…. maybe that’s why the club is so successful…
Tim