The March Session - Newport and the Sound of Music!

People came in dribs and drabs after a very hot Friday afternoon. However it was soon evident that there was life in the Folk Club again for 2009. By 8.30 there was a good 30 or so folk with guitars, whistles, accordions, a bass and lots of feet for toe tapping. Alan led off with Coconut Woman, Dave recited The Intro from CJ Dennis' The Sentimental Bloke, Jackie sang of High Hopes , Ted picked some neat tunes on the guitar, Rob got everyone singing along with his banjo to This Land is Your Land and then played a lovely Dylan song that this writer had never heard before, Leonie and Christine paired up for a duet on Look what they've done to my song (or thong?) and Greg O sang The Man WHo Struck O'Hara, an Irish melody often sung by Simon McDonald from Creswick. Midway during the evening Steve and Mike came in from doing a Bush Dance down at Footscray PS, and joined in with an old favourites - Stephen Foster's Hard Times, and a local song Footscray written by Newport Local Gary Adams. At that point Dave interjected and asked how come there is no Newport song, to which Rob on uke quietly introduced Newport Girls, a take on what is commonly (though erroneously known as Buffalo Girls. (it is a minstrel song for which the name of the town was changed depending on where the minstrels were playing - Buffalo was just one of those many towns). After that, Jules hit her straps with her own composition Falling for You - this augurs well for a year where the sounds of Newport will be new as well as the tried and true. Bruce finished off the session with the Joseph Spence hymn Great Dream from Heaven which was a lovely way to bear witness to the people who have lost their lives in the recent fires.

It was lovely to see some new faces from as far away as St Kilda, Northcote and Caulfied and everyone used the break to socialise and make connections with fellow music lovers. We sang Happy Birthday for Isaac, listened to Mira play show tunes on the accordion with Greg, and then got back to the business of making music. The session finished early (10.45) as members of the Bush Orchestra were heading up to Echuca early the next day for the festival (the very first Echuca Moama Celtic Festival ) and so they needed to maintain some energy. Finished off the night with The Parting Glass, and Steve gave us the cello solo on his bass which was a delight (I suppose more accurately a bass solo). It was a great night - nothing stronger than a cup of tea or coffee was needed to provide fuel for the singers and players - just a lot of good clean fun. Let there be more of it this year!