Hi and welcome to this week’s Dreamers Newsletter.
We had a great singers night at the club last Sunday with lots of good humour and good performances – in other words, a typical night at Dreamers. This Sunday we welcome Mark Dowding from Lancashire as our guest. Mark has a long history in folk music , all set out on his website http://www.markdowding.co.uk/ He’s been involved with a host of clubs, online sessions (including our own zoom), publications and festivals over the years – very well worth seeing in person. After that we have a couple of singers nights before the visit of Johnny Campbell on 15th June.
Meanwhile, the next session of the Cornish Zoom Folk Club is this coming Saturday, 24th May starting at 7.30 as always. We hope to see the usual wide selection of performers from all round the uk and further afield. However, very sadly, we’ll miss Neil Dawson from the Quarter Acoustic Club who has supported our zoom sessions from the early days with his wife Kay. Those who were at our April session will remember that Neil passed out while Kay was actually singing. Whilst he recovered that night and was able to rejoin us and indeed perform, the same thing happened last Sunday, during another zoom session. Neil had a massive heart attack from which he passed away. A good friend to us and to folk music generally who will be much missed.
Festivals coming up soon, of course. The Shanty Festival in Falmouth runs from 13th to 15th June with a record number of groups performing. All the details are at Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival No doubt the town will be packed as always with performers on stages, in pubs and other venues and in the streets. After that we have Sidmouth Festival from 1st to 8th August with an array of headline performers as always – details of that at Homepage – The Sidmouth Folk Festival
And then at the end of August, we have our “local” Festival at Wadebridge (Cornwall Folk Festival: Thu 22- Mon 26 Aug in Wadebridge, North Cornwall). Appropriately enough a key part of their raison d’etre is to support and promote Cornish culture and identity and this year over 80% of their performers are either Cornish-born or have chosen Kernow as their home, drawing inspiration from the peninsula.
A reminder that Live to Your Living Room features Peggy Seeger on her 90th birthday farewell tour on Monday 26th May at 8.00 (Peggy Seeger | Online Gig | Live To Your Living Room). Peggy is followed next Thursday by Heather Ferrier’s Mint Sessions, a warm and invigorating celebration of Northern women in folk music, taking influences from all types of genres, including jazz, pop, and alternative. A mix of contemporary and traditional tunes, both instrumental and with beguiling lyrics. That’s at Heather Ferrier’s Mint Sessions With Heather, Ceitidh Mac And Me Lost Me | Online Gig | Live To Your Living Room And finally the same site has one for the diary on 12th June with Martin Carthy – more about that later.
That’s all I’ve got time for this week, hope to see you on zoom on Saturday and/or at Dreamers on Sunday.
All the best
Nigel