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

Sunnyside Serenaders

Yesterday, I played two bookings with Mike Gardiner as the duo 'Sunnyside Serenaders'.

We are a rather 'strange' musical duo playing 'Goodtime Music through the Decades' mixed with traditional tunes and songs - which ever is appropriate for the booking. Mike plays fiddle and celtic harp and I play guitar and harmonica.

In the afternoon we played at the Coleshill Village Fete in Buckinghamshire. It's a quaint old fashioned style fete which had everything from cream teas to ferret racing!





We were positioned next to the cream teas so that people sitting at the tea tables could be entertained by us. The photos above show Mike playing the celtic harp and me on guitar and harmonica. We were doing a West Indian Calypso at the time!
We went straight from the fete to perform at the Haddenham Rotary Club annual dinner at the Cock and Rabbit Graziemille Restaurant at the Lee, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire.
Both bookings went really well but we were both fairly exhausted after 6 hours playing.
For more information about the 'Sunnyside Serenaders' contact adrianbroadway@googlemail.com

Fiddles on the River

We'll play anywhere! Yesterday evening four of the Oxford Fiddle Group - Monica (viola), me (guitar), Tom (fiddle) and Jed (fiddle) performed on the Salters boat 'Goring' for a birthday celebration group travelling down the River Thames from Donnington Bridge, Oxford. The boat had been hired for the occasion and there was a buffet and a bar for guests and band. The cruise lasted 4 hours (7-11pm) so there was plenty of playing and some singing except when going through the locks - Iffley then Sandford. Apparently music isn't allowed in the locks.

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