Fab Club Review
Liz Montgomery
As ever Fab Club continues to delight and surprise – you never know what new musical (or other performance!) experience is in store. This week we were joined by many Fab Club Virgins. I am definitely looking forward to them coming back again, as well as seeing them at other venues. We also had a tremendous guest slot from Les Elvin.
Mike Parrott is our inimitable compere, and opens the afternoon with the bittersweet song “Starstruck” penned by another Fab Club regular, Gordon Shears. Gordon is recovering from a bout of illness in hospital – best wishes from all of us, Gordon, we hope to see you and Debbie-Ann back with us again very soon. Mike follows this up with his lovely song in celebration of Eurovision - “Vote for Me” (complete with regulation key change). Mike admits to having seen Lordy in concert…
Our first Fab Club Virgin of the afternoon is Diane who performs beautiful slow lazy blues and jazz numbers, accompanied with gentle skilful guitar. She has an easy, mellifluous voice, strong but soft, and full of lazy summer afternoons and a little sadness. She performs a new song for us– not even a title yet- to start with – which is a sweet love song: she needs volunteers to provide a whistling accompaniment to the end as well as suggestions for a title. This is followed by the jazz classic “Nearness of You” and then the Hank Williams song “Weary Blues”. At the end of the afternoon we are able to persuade her to round off the session with more blues, and finally “Moon and the River”, the Ian Lang song. It was a beautiful way to end a classic Fab Club afternoon.
Definitely not a Fab Club Virgin, though, is our very own Margaret, Lady Formby, with her amazing ukelele – upping the pace with “TT Races” followed by “Sloop John B”.
Our second Fab Club Virgins are
Keith and Maureen – who provide us with much entertainment in their two sets of the afternoon. A lively mixture of unaccompanied traditional and modern fun songs for the first set, and their second session delivers a pair of Johnny Cash classics. Looking at my notes, I realise I missed the checking title of the first unaccompanied traditional song performed by Keith (help please? Sounded like the Glendonnoch Saint but I can’t trace it). This was followed by Keith and Maureen’s silver surfer rework of “I got you babe” (I know you really aren’t that old, honest, guys). Great words which managed to include such unlikely lyrics as Countdown, Viagra, Saga, arthritis and Stannah stairlifts! Maureen performs a great song called “Born again
Les Elvin provides us with a storming 30 minute set for the middle of the afternoon. With superb finger picking guitar work, which he makes look tremendously easy, and a fine voice, this just passes far too quickly.
And we’ll forgive him the bad jokes – totally in line with Fab Club taste! First a Britfolk arrangement of Gypsy Davey – is it really just a six string guitar he is playing? – sounds like 12. This is followed up with a ragtime instrumental – John Faheys classic “Take a look at that Baby”.
A change in pace next to “Streets of
Les often plays bass with another Fab Club fave, Ron Trueman-Border, and he performs Ron’s song of love and betrayal “Knife”, with a great harmonica break. Next he goes upbeat with “Fish and whistle”, with jaunty, tricky, tongue twisting words.
Another instrumental number – “Farewell to the Creeks”, a pipesong (elsewhere providing the setting to the poem “Farewell to
Maureen (she of the innocent expression but very naughty, very funny jokes and stories) entertains us with “The Nymphomaniac Convention” and then that classic tale of mistaken identity “The Doctors Waiting Room”. Where does she get them from?
As you can tell by now, we have a really wild range of acts this afternoon. Next up is Bill – who starts off with a remembered Spanish nursery rhyme about a River – another Fab Club Virgin, Manuel (yes, he really IS from
For the latter where we have to provide the appropriate percussive backing (among other things involved catching crabs under Southend Pier – its all in your mind, tut tut, really).
He promises us they have both been passed by the Fab Club Board of Censors, but we’re very broad minded around these parts. Great fun as usual!
Yay, Fab Club Virgin act #3 is Manuel – who on borrowed guitar allows us to air our Spanish singing capabilities with impromptu renditions of “Guantanamera” and “La Bamba”. Bravo, Manuel!
Margaret has also persuaded Ronnie to play for us also on borrowed guitar. Margaret met Ronnie last year at a musical competition in Romford as I recall, and he played for us shortly after. We are all delighted to see him again, and he gives us his gentle country style performances of “Feel Like Fred Astaire” (what a great line that is), and “A Little More Like Heaven”.
Ronnie always looks so serene when he is singing – he really means those lyrics.
[Liz!] I’m in a mood for reading some of my story poems. First “From Settle to
Claudine has arrived from her journeys, and accompanied by Mike on bass, is also in international mood. She performs one of her own songs first, (the Calling- ed.note) which brings together French and English vocals about her early experiences in
I think with so many new Fab Club attenders you could run that quiz again Claude – we had to guess the different locations described when she first performed this to us over a year ago! Then “Santiano” – this version of the capstan shanty is the French one, of course.
I love the almost reggae-style arrangement that Claudine has put to this classic.
Wow – Sunday afternoons go so fast at the Fab Club – and so many different things, old and new, national and international, instrumental and vocal. As I said at the beginning of this review, you never know what to expect – but I do know it will always be fun.
Liz M.
