Hi and welcome to this week’s Dreamers Newsletter after a week off for surgery.
A great evening at the Club on Sunday with a number of returning visitors and everyone on good form. It’s a while now until our next guests so let’s hope the high standard can be kept up through the summer months and, also, that we’ll see a good few visitors to Cornwall. Our next guests, on August 10th are Mick Ryan and Paul Downes, an evening to look forward to.
Meanwhile, the next session of the Cornish Zoom Folk Club is this coming Saturday, 28th June, starting at 7.30 as always. One of the great things about these evenings is that we never know quite who to expect but the standard is always pretty high. If you don’t already get it, just let me know if you would like the link.
It looks as though there may still be tickets available for a very special evening at the Acorn in Penzance on Tuesday (1st July) when the Penzance Literary Festival, in association with Penzance Folk Club, presents “Grace will Lead me Home” with Angeline Morrison, Cohen Braithwaite Kilcoyne, Jon Bickley and John Palmer. This is the story of John Newton who was sold as a slave at the age of 17 to an African princess, although he then later became a slave ship captain. After surviving a shipwreck, he devoted himself to God, writing the hymn Amazing Grace before becoming a leading abolitionist alongside William Wilberforce. To mark Newton’s 300th birthday, this tells his story using traditionally based and new songs, linked by 18th century diaries and writings from Newton. In addition, the evening will start with a set by the Penzance Folk Club.
The Falmouth Shanty Festival a couple of weeks ago was blessed with (generally) good, dry weather and good crowds as usual. On now to other Festivals with the Sidmouth International Festival from 1st to 8th August and the usual line-up of big names. For tickets and more details go to Tickets – The Sidmouth Folk Festival. And then, we move on to the Cornwall Folk Festival over the August Bank Holiday weekend – full details at Cornwall Folk Festival: Thu 22- Mon 26 Aug in Wadebridge, North Cornwall – note that “saver” tickets for thMagpies and JackieOates are only available until 30th June.
Quiet online for the next month (though Live to Your Living Room restarts with lots of events at the end of July. For now there’s a new and rather different episode on Folk on Foot since I last mentioned it with the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and his band LYR performing poems and music inspired by the stories told by the people of the West Yorkshire Village of Marsden, where Simon grew up. It’s all part of the annual “Cuckoo Day” festival in the village, celebrating the myth that local people thought they could keep the spring going all year round if they could only capture a cuckoo. Amongst the poetry there are outbreaks of morris dancing, organ playing – and the emotional story of a mangle! Simon Armitage and LYR on Cuckoo Day in Marsden
That’s all for now, hope to see you on Sunday at the Club and on zoom on Saturday
All the best
Nigel