Singer’s Night 24th July
Another great night at the club with eight regulars and two visitors from over the border.
Maureen stepped in at the helm as Joe was attending his son’s wedding and she stepped up to the mic too, doing a masterful job of MC-ing the evening. Her first task was to introduce John Ryder who kicked things off with some Cat Stevens. Then it was the turn of Wirral musician John Williams who produced some wonderful sounds and a wide range of styles using his trusty Cello Mandolin, the first being a song he’d sung the night before at a WW1 commemorative event.
Then Tom and Lynda took us for a Walk in the Irish Rain. And what happens every time Lynda sings about the rain…? (I’m writing this on Saturday to the sound of it lashing at the window!)
Our second visitor Phil Chisnall was next up, opening his set with a lovely self-penned love song, featuring great finger-picking, before asking us: “Fly me to the Moon” using the language of swing.
Ros gave us “Get Over You”, accompanied by John on guitar who, in his boy scout shorts, was probably the most sensibly dressed of all of us on this sticky July evening. (No pictures though, you’ll be glad to hear! 🙂 ).
Andy sang a song about a Mute Swan and reinforced Lynda’s rain dance with “Listen to the Rhythm of the Pouring Rain”.
Yours truly, the Hairy Photographer, delivered a sober version of Tom Waites’ “Jockey Full of Bourbon”. Followed by Barry who told us “The Way to Amarillo”. He didn’t sing it; our resident master of wit and repartee quite literally told us the way to Amarillo – right down to the flight number and terminal you’d need at Heathrow! It was therefore quite appropriate that his first song should be “Navigator”.
It was really good to see Harry back at the club following an absence recovering from surgery – and in fine voice too. He gave us “True Love Ways” and “My Old Friend the Blues”, finishing with a rock n’ roll song he wrote some time ago. And in the words of that song, he got us all “High High High – Like we used to”. It feels like the universe is now back in balance.
With a bit of time to spare at the end of the evening we called upon the visitors to sing us out. It was Phil Chisnall’s first visit to Ruthin and we certainly hope not his last. He gave us another of his own songs, called “Thinking of You” and finished on a Gary Davies song, “I’ll do my last singing in this land somewhere”.
His fellow Wirralite John Williams has been to us a few times over the years. He belted out a fantastic version of the Stereophonics’ Dakota in a way Kelly Jones himself would have approved of.
A terrific evening …and all for a quid!
See you all next week!
