It wasn’t a guest night, just an ordinary sing a long, and often these are the best. I’d hate to start recording a performers list but from memory there were at least the following:

Kriss Pouch
Smolowic
Micky Brown & Richie Barratt
Clive and Linda – Ploughman’s Lunch
Rocking Bob Cash
Helen Islip
Andy Roberts
Margaret Brown
Len Reeder
MickaNora
Pam

I took along my Archtop Guitar and played one of my own songs from The Andy Roberts Tapes:

I Only Came For My Suitcase

followed by my version of Chuck berry’s classic anthem for estranged fathers:

Memphis Tennessee

Thanks to Linda for capturing these videos. On playing them back it’s unfortunate that balance between guitar and vocals isn’t right so either the archtop is just too loud for my voice or I simply wasn’t singing loudly enough myself, I wonder why?

Right at the end I was honoured with the opportunity to wind up with one final song so I performed Bob Marley’s Redemption song but it wasn’t practical to record that one as the general merriment peaked.

The White Horse, 118 High Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, Greater London  RM6 6NU

I quite like The Stables Function Suite as a room, the acoustics are bright and loud unlike the previous venue The Moby Dick, which deadened everything. It could be a bit on the friendly and intimate (small) side if everybody turned up at once, but that’s better than shrinking the audience through having an unsympathetic atmosphere, which the White Horse doen’t by any means.

So Wednesday August 24st signified the first night for the old Havering Folk Club – Now Haverfolk at the White Horse, at which I can arrive promptly by taking the train to Chadwell Heath station and then walking around the corner for about ten minutes. No need to take an additional bus, which makes it less hassle to get from as well of course. Being August, several of the regulars were away including a contingent visiting the Whitby Folk Week, so there was enough time to do two sets, and I was invited to perform an extended 2nd set to end the evening, which is how I come to have enough material to make into a podcast episode, a collection of six songs in total, four of which are self compositions and two are traditional.

Here is the download podcast link, file details show notes and set list for podcast number 48:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes

Download MP3 to save – 33.8 Mb in size, playtime 23 minutes 29 seconds :- 48 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 48.mp3

Andy Roberts Podcast #48 Shownotes

Show Notes for Podcast 48

1. Cormorants - Andy Roberts original
2. Sitting On The Bank  - Andy Roberts original
3. The Wreckers’ Prayer  - Andy Roberts original
4. Captain Coulston – Traditional folk song
5. Truro Agricultural Show - Traditional folk song
6. Yellow Boat  - Andy Roberts original

Andy Roberts Video Podcast Live from Haverfolk

Cormorants

Sitting On The Bank

The Wreckers’ Prayer

Captain Coulston

Truro Agricultural Show

Yellow Boat

Episode 44 of the Andy Roberts Podcast continues the soundtrack from the Romford Folk Club guest night of April 12th with six more self written songs performed live.

Here’s the download and play link etc:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes

Download MP3 to save – 38 Mb in size, playtime 26 minutes 20 seconds :- 44 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 44.mp3

Andy Roberts Podcast #44 Shownotes

Show Notes for Podcast 44

1. Yellow Boat
2. Gernika
3. Doing it all alone
4. Migration
5. Joan of Arc
6. The Dream is Over

Here’s the download and play link etc:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes

Download MP3 to save – 37.6. Mb in size, playtime 26 minutes 4 seconds :- 43 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 43.mp3

Andy Roberts Podcast #43 Shownotes

Show Notes for Podcast 43

1. Hold On Below
2. Time For The Music
3. Waiting
4. Work Is Done
5. Cormorants
6. Narrowboats

Here’s the player, link and download :

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes

Download MP3 to save – 28.8 Mb in size, playtime 29 minutes 54 seconds :-

35 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 35.mp3

Andy Roberts Podcast #35 Shownotes

The first 4 songs were recorded at Lizzy B’s Acoustic Sessions in Brentwood, Essex

I also mentioned the Andy Roberts interview for The Lost Folk Tapes

The last song, was a contribution to the Songwriters Circle WK 2 Challenge

1. Mazet – Andy Roberts
2. Migration – Andy Roberts
3. The Last Subway Home – Andy Roberts
4. Grow Fins – Captain Beefheart
5. The Streets of Paris – Andy Roberts

The Streets of Paris

The Streets of Paris by andyroberts

Starting off with the oldest Andy Roberts song in my repertoire, Hold On Below dates back to early songwriting attempts while I was still a young teenager coming straight home from school and learning to play guitar for several hours non stop every night – I was in hurry. There are two tunes on the Chinese lute, then a song which is intended to introduce you to another songwriter, Ruairidh Anderson who is in the midst of a 52 week project called Songs From The Howling Sea, and finally a song about a field.

Here’s the web player, download link, tracklist and show notes for Podcast Episode 14:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 28.3Mb in size and 29 minutes 25 seconds in duration from this link

14 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 14.mp3

Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 14 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 14 broadcast on October 5th 2010, published on October 6th 2010.

1) Hold On Below

I found the original handwritten document for Hold On Below and it is in fact dated October 1973, which is a little bit later than thought but still the earliest one that has survived the years really, apart from one called “Living in Time Warp” which is dated 1937. According to my Andy Roberts Music blog, where there’s a record of songs performed, I played Hold On Below at Havering Folk Club on January 15, 2009 and for my first Ustream broadcast on August 4th 2009, but it’s not the best performance, so I’ll wait until this current one surfaces to embed the video.

Words and Music by Andy Roberts, from the album The Andy Roberts Tapes

2) Yangtse Gorges

Instrumental by Andy Roberts, from the album “Album 1”

3) The Truro Agricultural Show

A traditional song which was originally written to help advertise the Royal Cornwall Show on the date when it merged with the Bath and West to form a super show, and was held for the only time, near the city of Truro. Accompanied here by the Chinese Lute.

Attribution: Traditional, arrangement by Andy Roberts

4) Geneva’s Call

I’d like to do more of this kind of thing, playing songs by ordinary musicians, friends and podcasters. It then gives me the opportunity to use this website to link out to the wider online music community, and point out other podcasts that may be of interest to anybody who has taken the time to listen to some of my own stuff.

Geneva’s Call is a song by Ruairidh Anderson and is part of the Songs From The Howling Sea project, to record 52 songs in 52 weeks about the Old East End of London.

Hear the original here: 18b. Free Song – Geneva’s Call with further explanations at 18a. Infanticide And Slappy Bonita – A History Of Gin

Lyrics and Music by Ruairidh Anderson, interpretation by Andy Roberts

5) Back In The Field

Back in The Field was the first song I recorded on Garageband, with muti tracked vocals and two guitars. I should do some more of that from time to time, as well as keeping the podcast going.  You can download the Garageband version from Reverbnation or Last.fm or get the Sampler CD on which it features. This is also a repeat performance as far as the official podcast episodes are concerned, since Back In The Field opened the show for the first podcast Episode #1

Words and Music by Andy Roberts, from the albums Album 1 and Sampler CD

So one date that was remarkable was the date when the Australian duo Cloudstreet came to the Golden Lion to do a long awaited guest spot for Havering Folk Club. Wednesday 15th September. They didn’t disappoint, it was one of the most enjoyable evenings we’ve had there over the years, and I even managed to track down their own blog afterwards so I can keep up with where they are touring, ready for next time they are in the local area.

cloudstreet

As one of only a small number of floor spot artists I had the chance to play two songs, and these were:

Joan of Arc

Sometimes this happens, and my voice hadn’t warmed up in time for the first song, so I’ve trashed the video and instead here is the song as performed for podcast episode 10. I think I’ll leave this one for a while now.

Followed by The Cajun Cooking Cajun Music song.

There’s a nice bright image on that video, thanks to Linda innovating with the video settings on her relatively new stills camera.

Back to  Tuesdays as usual for this week’s podcast, recorded live on 21st September, a day when the day and night are of equal length everywhere on our plant, and also when Jupiter was clearly visible at it’s closest point for at least twelve years.

There are two Roy Harper songs in this weeks podcast, one Andy Roberts original, a Bonzo Dog Band single and a Ralph McTell golden oldie.

Here is the tracklist of links and show notes for Podcast Episode 12:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 27.3Mb in size and 28 minutes 22 seconds in duration from this link

12 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 12.mp3

Podcast Episode 12 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 12 broadcast on September 21st, published on September 22nd 2010.

1) IF – written by Roy Harper

IF is a song by Roy Harper from the album “Once“.

2) The Nutmeg Tree – Andy Roberts

I wrote The Nutmeg Tree while waiting for a London restaurant to reopen so I could get back my bag which I’d left behind the night before.  I may have done this before on the show

3) Last Train and Ride – Lyrics and Music by Ralph Mc Tell

Ralph McTell recorded this on his early Spiral Staircase LP. I said during the show that I know it from Ralph Mc Tell but it’s probably an old jazz blues classic, and of course that turns out not to be the case at all.  There’s even an account of the writing of the song on Ralph’s site here :

http://www.ralphmctell.co.uk/feat_spiral.php

Last Train and Ride emerged from my putting random chords together i.e. C followed by B7th and, in my naïvité, I imagined that such a musical combination could never have been done before. It became the hook for the song.

4) The Same Old Rock – Roy Harper Song

The Same Old Rock is of course a classic favourite of mine, so I try to do it justice from time to time, and anyway I enjoy singing it almost whenever I get the chance. There are about 12 minutes of it here.

5) Urban Spaceman – The Bonzo Dog Band

I’m The Urban Spaceman was a single by the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band in 1968, written by Neil Innes and produced by Paul McCartney and Gus Dudgeon under the pseudonym “Apollo C. Vermouth”

I used to do this for the cinema queues on the Champs Elysees back in my Paris busking days, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be performed in a folk club these days. Or on an Andy Roberts podcast for that matter.  Disclaimer: The Andy Roberts behind the Andy Roberts podcast has nothing at all to do with the Three Bonzos And A Piano who do occasional gigs in the UK.

So this week’s podcast was recorded a day early, on the Monday instead of Tuesday, not that that will make much difference to podcast subscribers, who mostly seem to like to download the show about one week after it’s been published, but for those of you who might on occasion turn up for the live show at 7.00pm, I won’t be there at all some Tuesdays, and this was one of them.

Knowing that I was effectively playing to an absent live audience had a curious effect on the performance, which I would describe as slightly more random in a creative sort of way, but Linda described as “less in the flow”. I was worried that it wouldn’t be good enough for me to want to put out at all, so I carried on after the half hour but in the end that just made it a bit more difficult to edit down to size, something I’d prefer not to do really.

So the original full length video file saved over on Ustream is not worth keeping really, due to the failing daylight at this time of year on a cloudy September evening, and me not having bothered to find the lamp. I kind of like lurking in the dark though

Andy Roberts is being kept in the dark

Here is the tracklist of links and show notes for Podcast Episode 11:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 28.8Mb in size and 29 minutes 57 seconds in duration from this link

10 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 11.mp3

Podcast Episode 11 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 11 broadcast on September 13th, published on September 14th 2010.

1) Century

A Millenium song written by Andy Roberts around 1980

“Century is my song for the Millennium, written in the early eighties looking forward to the year 2000. It’s called “Century” because the term Millennium wasn’t so much in use then, nobody much had started thinking about it yet, and I was still writing COBOL computer programs with 2 digit years”

2) I Am The Way

Song by Loudon Wainwright after Woodie Guthrie’s “Standing Down in New York Town”. Just noticed I played this not long ago, in podcast 7 oh well.

3) You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere

Bob Dylan Song from Greatest Hits Vol 2

4) Mondura Dam – Andy Roberts song

I may have played this recently, not sure now, but anyway here it is again but this time on the 12 string guitar. Music and Lyrics by Andy Roberts.

5) Norwegian Wood – Beatles

I kind of love/hate this song, so I’m trying to reinterpret it. The video below will be from a live performance at Havering Folk Club

6) Me and my Friend the Cat

One of the early songs by Loudon Wainwright – performed on his birthday. Happy birthday Loudon. Next time I’ll remember the lyrics, OK.

When an Old Cricketer

Cricket has been in the news recently, not in a good way, with allegations of match fixing but sometimes any association is enough to prompt a vaguely relevant song or song title. Or sometimes just because of one lyric within a song, it doesn’t matter if anybody else gets it or not. Any excuse to break the agony of having to make a decision as to what to play next!

So this is When an Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease written by Roy Harper adapted by Andy Roberts

I do have another version of Old Cricketer online here but that’s played on the six string, I don’t really know which is the best performance from myself, perhaps you would be so kind as to “like”, “favourite” “rate” or whichever is appropriate on any of these videos to give an indication of relative quality, that might then help me choose, thanks.

San Francisco

This song is San Francisco by Maxime le Forestier, Andy Roberts version with his funny English accent.

Other performances of the same song 1) San Francisco

Mazet

Not just because I just got back from France but also having met an old friend from the Mazet last week.

Alternative takes:

1. Mazet
2. Mazet
3. Mazet
4. Mazet

Since experimenting with open tuning, not something I normally burden myself with, I’ve hatched a plan to finish off the two songs I brought back from Cornwall, firstly by merging them into one and now by using the new open D tuning. But that’s for another week to try and demonstrate. This week, quite late in the day I decided to feature some Beatles songs  but didn’t feel like doing “A Day in The Life” or any of the early stuff so I ended up with one classic from each of the three great songwrites, George Harrison Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Just my personal choice, and two of them come from “The Beatles” double album, also known as The White Album. Working Class Hero is not a Beatles song, it’s from John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band.

Here are the links for Podcast Episode 8:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 25.7Mb in size and 27 minutes 57 seconds in duration from this link

08 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 8.mp3

There’s also a stored video file from the live broadcast over at Ustream.tv where the podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time

Video Podcast Episode No8

Podcast Episode 8 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 8 broadcast on August 24th, published on August 25th 2010.

All songs performed with the 12 string vintage Guild acoustic guitar except one instrumental on the Ibanez 6 string in open D tuning.

The Royal Forester – Traditional/ Steeleye Span

The Royal Forester is a Scottish ballad from my favourite Steeleye Span album, Below The Salt where they subtitle the track “the aboriculturist meets superwoman”.

Below the Salt

While My Guitar Gently Weeps – George Harrison

Open D Intrumental – Andy Roberts

Rocky Racoon – Lennon/McCartney

Standing By – Andy Roberts

Working Class Hero – John Lennon

If you have any suggestions for alternatives to Ustream, or ways to improve it then please come forth in the comments here.

Here are the links for Podcast Episode 7:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 26.2Mb in size and 28 minutes 36 seconds in duration from this link

07 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 7.mp3

There’s also a stored video file from the live broadcast over at Ustream.tv where the podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time

Video Podcast Episode No 7

Podcast Episode 7 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 7 broadcast on August 17th, published on August 18th 2010.

All songs performed with the 12 string vintage Guild acoustic guitar except 06 on the Ibanez 6 string

Postcards from Scarborough – Michael Chapman

Postcards is probably Mike Chapman’s most frequently covered songs, and I enjoy playing it on the 12 string guitar, flat picking style.

The video below is from Havering Folk Club, January 2009 or possibly August 2008.

Shifting Sands – Andy Roberts

Here’s an old demo video of Shifting Sands which was the first song in a sequence which I now refer to as “the Spanish songs” or the album Gernika

Wild World – Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam

This is an old busking song which has some nice runs on the 12 string guitar.

The placeholder video is a six string version, which I’ll replace later.

The Last Nail – Andy Roberts

The Last Nail – info

I am The Way – Loudon Wainwright

From Attempted Moustache

The Loudon Wainwright Special was episode 4

Winter in Andalucia – Andy Roberts

Winter in Andalucia ( or Andalusia ) is one of the songs on my Sampler CD

I wonder if it might be good to have a simple index of which songs on each podcast somewhere, without the notes and videos etc. just for reference.

The first was to align with the previous night’s podcast episode 6 which was loosely themed around the fingerpicking blues style and I’ve been having the tune of Hesitation Blues going through my head ever since so that’s what I played.

Secondly, I’d been corresponding about The Wreckers Prayer so that got another airing. Linda wasn’t there to shoot any video so I’ll include some alternatives takes from the Andy Roberts Music youtube account in due course.

After the break or rather just before the break, I got called up again and decided on the spur of the moment to do two Beatles songs. I Feel Fine and Norwegian Wood

I have two apologies to make first.

The length of the podcasts is meant to be strictly under half an hour, and this one is 30 minutes and 18 seconds. That’s eighteen seconds too long, I didn’t notice until after I’d exported the mp3 file. Sorry about that. Won’t happen again. The other thing is the sound quality which is not up to scratch either. I’ve done some software updates and the recording level got reset, and it was too high so there is some distortion on the guitar parts in the louder tunes. I dont mind it too much myself, but if you hate that sort of cheap fuzzboxy kind of noise then just skip over those bits, or miss out the whole episode. I’ll get it right next time. Now the podcast player and show notes:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url:

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 29.2Mb in size and 30 minutes 18 seconds in duration from this link

06 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 6.mp3

There’s also a stored video file from the live broadcast over at Ustream.tv where the podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time

Video Podcast Episode No 6

Podcast Episode 6 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 6 broadcast on August 10th, published on August 11th 2010. All songs performed with the six string Ibanez acoustic guitar again (must get the 12 string out next week)

Hesitation Blues

I know this song from Ralph McTell but the origins are older: “Hesitation Blues” is a popular song written by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham around 1914. It’s changed a bit, with famous versions by Leadbelly, Rev Gary Davis and Janis Joplin

When The Waters Rise

I haven’t performed my song “When The Waters Rise” for a while so I thought I’d slip it into this episode. It’s not a blues though, it’s a tango. SInce the subject matter is a distopian view of climate change I thought I’d offer it to the Black Mountain Uncivilisation community. Oh well.

Count On Me

I learned this one from Wizz Jones but it’s by Mose Allison

Doing it All Alone

One of my Paris songs, Doing it all alone : lyrics and music by Andy Roberts

Deep River Blues

Again know to me as a Wizz Jones song but it’s an old blues classic made famous by Doc Watson.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out

John The Fish used to sing this one at the old folk cottage in Truro, and then Eric Clapton recorded it on his unplugged album but it was a well knownjazz/blues song before that.

No – by Loudon Wainwright

This is just the bonus track really, which I learned to play this week in response to a request by Then Wang for a tutorial with chords so he can learn it himself. Great song though, which I may be able to do some justice to one day, but not quite there yet…

EAVB_QEVEUEIIKM

The rest of my songs would need be described as “Contemporary Folk” which probably means they sound like they were written in the 1970s, and some of them were…

Anyway, here is the podcast player and download link followed by this week’s show notes

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast

Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 23.8Mb in size and 25 minutes 40 seconds in duration from this link

05 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 5.mp3

There’s also a stored video file from the live broadcast over at Ustream.tv where the podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time

Video Podcast Episode No 5

Podcast Episode 5 Show Notes

Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 5 published on August 4th 2010. All songs performed with the six string Ibanez acoustic guitar

1. Sitting on top of the World – by Andy Roberts
2. The Wreckers’ Prayer – by Andy Roberts
3. The Rowan Tree – by Andy Roberts
4. Captain Coulston – Traditional /  Steeleye Span
5. Cajun Cooking Music – by Andy Roberts
6. Old Paint -  Traditional

25 Minutes 40 seconds 23.8Mb

I went along to Havering Folk Club last Wednesday after a week away on holiday and tried to do a version of one of the new songs I haven’t finished yet. I know It didn’t work out very well, partly because I don’t have the lyrics memorised yet and I tried reading from a crib sheet on the music stand, which has never worked out for me in past and probably never will. I can sing and play at the same time, sometimes I can sing, play and read at the same time, but not it seems in front of an audience, standing up and without reading glasses. So I’ve uploaded the podcast versions of the unfinished songs to youTube instead. The one called “Untitled 1″ in the episode 3 shownotes is provisionally called “Trevellas” now, and unfinished 2 is called “Summerhouse” but I also have a plan for combining the two songs into one single work that would be longer and more complex. We’ll have to see.

Sitting On The Bank

To recompose my composure, finding myself with a capo on fret 4 I decided on the spur of the moment to sing “Sitting on the Bank” which is a simple song I wrote when I was about 15 or 16 and thinking about leaving home soon. While uploading I noticed that the melody is developing slightly even now, I’m not sure it’s correct to call it a revival though, as it’s never really been out of the repertoire.

The Mighty Quinn

After the break and with the list of floor singers completed there was a little time left and Pep kindly asked me to do another, so after 3 pints I decided to do a singalong that everybody knows though it turned out not everybody at Havering Folk Club knows that the Mighty Quinn was a Bob Dylan song. The Manfred Mann cover version was better known in the UK in 1960s and afterwards.