Special Birthday Surprise

Last Saturday, I had the surprise of my life when I was whisked away, blindfolded, to a secret location. It turned out to be a surprise birthday party for me organised by my family. It certainly was a surprise - I knew absolutely nothing about it and as the blindfold was removed there were friends and musicians (not that the musicians aren't also my friends!) dating back to my schooldays. As this is a music blog, I won't dwell on the wonderful food, drink and friendship but concentrate on the music. Being led by son to the venue

The blindfold is removed. Absolute shock at 70 people in front of me

The session started after lunch.

Joining in were members of the Oxford Fiddle Group, The Haddenham Shamrocks, 8 past and present members of the Kinderhook Barn Dance Band and a few others!

3 generations of musicians in this picture - Andrew on whistle in the middle, his father on banjo in the foreground and his grandfather on accordion in the background.

The session continues

Adrian and Rita

The Ian English Boodlum Band doing a spot - keyboard, washboard kit, guitar and phono fiddle!

@'The Sailor with the Navy Blue Eyes' - making me rather wet after attempting to vent and drink water at the same time??

Stuart, all the way from Exeter to play the musical saw. Stuart led the jug band I joined in 1967. You can see a picture of him in 1967 on the 10 Oct 2010 blog. He's on the extreme right, next to me on the double bass.

A duo waiting to do their spot! Eve with her great-grandfather.

Irish in Haddenham

Yesterday evening was the twice monthly meeting of the Irish session at the Rose and Thistle in Haddenham, Bucks.
It is unlike a normal session. It takes place in the back room of the pub so there are only the musicians in the room.
In the first half of the evening we try out more obscure Irish jigs, reels, polkas and hornpipes collected by Tony Blay. This is more of a workshop session led by Tony. The tunes are arranged into sets and rehearsed so that they become part of the group repertoire.
The second half of the evening is more in the traditional session style with different musicians playing Irish tunes and others joining in.


There is a good variety of Irish folk instruments played at the session: fiddle, whistle, flute, concertina, accordion, banjo, mandolin guitar and bodhran.
Pictured above are Dave, me and Penny.


Pictured above - Tony and Tim.
There are fourteen members of the group with about 8-10 attending at any one session.



Bruce
The session takes place on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month starting at 8.15

Kinderhook plays at a Schools Folk Dance Festival

Today, 'Kinderhook' played at the High Wycombe and District Primary Schools Folk Dance Festival. This is an annual outdoor event and Kinderhook have played at the festival for the last six years. About fourteen or fifteen schools take part which means over 200 children. As you can see from the photos, the weather was good and all seemed to enjoy this annual traditional event.

Trevor Toms on guitar and me on banjo playing for the dancing

Traditional Music Sessions

There are a number of traditional music sessions in Bucks and Oxfordshire where musicians regularly meet to play tunes together. They all vary slightly in what goes on and who goes. Most include the occasional song - some include quite a few!
The sessions I like the best are those where it's mostly traditional tunes played by a variety of instruments (not too many accordians or melodions!) by good players. I usually take my Gold Tone tenor banjo so that I can play the tunes rather than accompany them.
My favourite traditional music sessions are:
1. The White Swan at Whitchurch, Bucks which takes place on the 3rd Monday of the month. Some really good musicians turn up here and many tunes are played during the evening (and hardly any songs). The Landlord (from the Czech Republic) serves up loads of free food to the musicians during the evening. The photos below show the session from last Monday at the White Swan.


I'm at the back of the photo on banjo with Matt Morton (from Kinderhook) next to me on flute.


Concertinas together! Pippa with the Anglo Concertina and Pete with the English Concertina - both excellent players. I see Pete North at the Killigworth Castle session mentioned below.

2. The Killingworth Castle Inn, Wootten near Woodstock, Oxfordshire which takes place on the 1st Monday of the month. There are always plenty of musicians in this pub which is well known for its live music, particularly traditional.
3. The Cuckoos Nest, Gawcott, Bucks which takes place on the second Monday of the month. This is a new session which started in April.
4. The Rose and Thistle, Haddenham, Bucks which takes place on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. This is an Irish session run by Tony Blay. It started in January 2008 and is struggling a bit with numbers. I hope it survives.

There are other sessions which I have been to in the past but don't go to now:
The Gardners Arms, Tackley, Oxfordshire, 2nd Sunday.
The Cherry Tree, Steventon, Oxfordshire - 3rd Sunday - English only - quite a long way for me;
The Eight Bells, Long Crendon, Bucks - 1st Wednesday - very local for me but too much reading music and singers.

Details about traditional sessions can be found in the free publication 'Shire Folk' a guide to folk and roots music within a 30 mile radius of Oxford (http://www.shirefolk.org.uk/)

Mouse and Trousers

On Friday evening I played a barn dance with 'Mouse and Trousers' at the Wovercote festival (near Oxford). I play with them when one of the regular band members can't make the booking. Mostly I 'dep' for the bass guitar player but this time I was playing the tunes on the tenor banjo to dep for a melody player.



In this photo are: Chris Mills (guitar) me (tenor banjo) John Winterbottom (bass guitar) Gareth Morris (drums & calling) Stephen Passey (fiddle).
The photos below show the last time I played with Mouse and Trousers at Wheatley, Oxfordshire on the May Bank Holiday weekend.



Pictured (looking very serious!!) are: Tom Bell-Richards (fiddle) Gareth Morris (drums) me (bass guitar) Heather White (whistle) and Chris Mills (guitar)

Pictured here (the only one smiling!) is Marilyn Mills on English Concertina

A busy June weekend

This weekend was the start of some busy musical weekends for me. Friday evening saw me playing double bass in a 50s band at Brill Sports and Social Club - an interesting experience!

By Saturday afternoon, I was on more familiar territory playing banjo for the Haddenham Hoofers at Bourton Meadow, Buckingham. Musicians also pictured are Ed Houghton -guitar, Penny Heydon - fiddle and Tim Mason - 5 string banjo.


Saturday evening was an open air barn dance at Ardley, Oxfordshire with the Mizen Ramblers. The sun was still shining when this photo was taken but it got a bit chilly in the darkness later on! I'm playing my 5 string acoustic/electric bass guitar. Also pictured from left to right: Tom Bell-Richards - fiddle, Jed Mugford -fiddle, Mike Gardiner - fiddle and Trevor Toms - guitar.

Kinderhook

My regular band for barn dance bookings is ‘Kinderhook.’ The band has been going since 1982 and the first photo above shows the Kinderhook 25th reunion at Killingworth Castle Inn, Wootten-near-Woodstock, Oxfordshire in May 2007. There have been a number of personnel changes and the photo shows some of the musicians who have played in the band over the years.
Kinderhook is a four piece band and the current line up is listed below with the year they joined and instruments played:
Adrian Broadway (pictured above) 1982 – bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, calling; Trevor Toms (pictured above) 1983 – guitar, banjo, drum tracks; and two from the following four: Sarah Gates 1991 – flute, piccolo, recorder; Sali Toms 1999 – flute; Matt Morton (pictured above) 2003 – whistles, soprano sax; Lorna Morton (pictured above) 2003 – fiddle.
Barn Dances are still popular in England as a social event and most of our bookings are for private functions such as weddings, silver and ruby wedding anniversaries, birthday parties (18th -80th!) Village and School Associations. We take bookings mainly in the Buckinghamshire/ Oxfordshire/Hertfordshire area.
Kinderhook can be contacted at adrianbroadway@googlemail.com

Haddenham Hoofers in Antwerp

The Haddenham Hoofers (Appalachian Step Dance Group) travelled to Antwerp on the weekend of May 9-11 May to take part in a folk dance festival. I played banjo for the dancing which included very hot open air performances in the square in Antwerp on Saturday and concert performances on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

Other groups performing were Les Joyeux Vendéens from France and De Kegelaar, the host group from Belgium.

Haddenham Hoofers meet every Thursday evening in St Mary's Church Hall, Haddenham, Buckinhamshire to rehearse Appalachian Step Dancing to live music. They perform mainly in the Summer months locally at festivals, fetes and other events. They also perform at National Folk Festivals. In 2008, performances include: The Straw Bear Festival of Dance, Whittlesea, Sidmouth Folk Festival and Towersey Village Festival.

For more information: https://sites.google.com/site/haddenhamhoofers/