Photobombing Clowns and Killer Sounds
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I do seem to have taken a lot of photographs of Tom Degney this week. Every time I looked through the lens – there he was!
Not that he was photobombing, you understand, it’s just that he was being summoned every five minutes by almost every Tom, Dick and Harry to accompany them as they got up to perform. Which he did unstintingly and expertly armed variously with Guitar, Mandolin or Dobro. This man plucks more G-strings than Donald Trump!
On the subject of photobombing, we did experience one such encounter, and for a moment, it seemed that the ‘Killer Clown’ craze had come to Ruthin. Upon forensically inspecting the photographic evidence, however, it turned out to be our own lovable clown, Robin The Busker, sporting a new mop-top.
And when Robin went from being Killer Clown to making ‘killer sounds’ about the “Old Cotton Fields Back Home”, Tom was up there on mandolin, as he was for Geoff Hollis waxing lyrical about the fact “She Wears Black Clothes”.
When Lynda took a “Walk in the Irish Rain”, Tom was there alongside her with his guitar. Then, when Richard sang Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice”, Tom didn’t think twice before reaching for his trusty Dobro.
Mr Dylan
And actually, there were quite a few more tributes to Mr. Dylan on the very day we’d heard the news that the great man had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Robin had already sung “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”. The Neale’s gave us four: “Make You Feel my Love” and “Forever Young” from Penni and husband Bob did “Lesson too Late for the Learning” and “With God on our Side”.
Having accompanied almost everyone else, Tom took to the stage once more. Flying solo this time, with “Sweet Little Georgia Rose”.
As the evening progressed, we had a lovely varied collection of songs spanning many decades from Glyn, Joe, Chris, Ros and John.
Just as we were all wondering where on earth all the time goes, Peter Lesley stepped up to the mic to deliver Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows where the Time Goes”.
The Finale
Well I’ll tell you where it goes, it takes us up to finale time, and filling that spot this week was the talented Wirral singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist, John Williams.
We are always pleased to see John, of course, and were particularly delighted this week that he chose our club for one of his first forays back into the world of folk since having major orthopaedic surgery almost three months ago.
Playing his cello mandolin tonight, he sang us a fine selection including Richard Shindell’s “Reunion Hill” and “Last Fare of the Day”, and his own composition “On the Ferry to Peel Island”.
Finally, John’s encore took us up to closing time, appropriately and quite literally, with Lyle Lovett’s “Closing Time”.
More of the same next week folks…
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