Sidmouth Festival Diary (Saturday)

First full day of festival….. 

Coffee and bacon roll in cafe. Bumped into my Recently Ennobled Folk Friend. (Lady in cafe greets him as ‘Sir’!)

I am not going to get into the infinite regress thing I used to do at Junior School Camp, of recording in my diary when I wrote my diary. 

Today is technically the first full day off the festival! So, of course, I have been a bit ‘full on’.

11.30 — Concert: Holly Clarke sings fairly traditional folk repertoire with quite bouncy modern arrangements. Ben Moss, who I have seen accompanying Grace Petrie, sings clever modern songs in a trad-adjacent style. E.G His song about urban foxes, in which King Renardine has been reduced to a beggar.

1pm — Second half of Middle Bar sing around. I sing The F-Word Song which goes down surprisingly well. Make a note of several shanties I ought to learn, including Yaa Yaa Skipper Jan Rebek.

3pm — Concert: Patakas are Joe and Will Sartin, which produces a certain amount of built-in goodwill. (They are now talking about their dad, and even joking about making the audience cry.) But they are clearly a tremendous trad duo in their own right, alternating tunes and traditional numbers. And an easy, laid-back, stage presence. 

The Copper Family could almost be said to have invented folk music: the current incarnation are the grandchildren of Bob Copper. I heard them once when they were trading as the Young Coppers, which I was alarmed to find was eighteen years ago. They are confident that their songs (including things like Spencer the Rover and Thousands or More) have been in their family for seven generations, on the grounds they have a written document written by Bob’s grandfather, which says “I learned these songs from my grandfather.” They are avowedly an amateur outfit, but still wonderful. I was going to say that their singing is “harmony style” or even “church style” but obviously the word is Copper Family Style. 

5pm — Across town to, er, the Conservative Club for the second half of a legendary ballad session. Only traditional ballads from memory are permitted…. Didn’t make notes of what was sung, although there was definitely a fine Alan Tyne of Harrow. 

7pm — I have nothing against  Lindisfarne, but have probably heard Fog on the Tyne as many times as I need to, so opted for the Traditional Night Out in the arts centre. A kind of rolling folk club in which an invited gaggle of singers and musicians do a couple of songs each. I concede that my concentration may have wandered a couple of times. In a way quite odd to hear Phil Ochs’ There But For Fortune in that context. 

11pm — Up hill for a campfire session. A group of Morris Dancers incorporate a slang term for the male organ into Sidney Carter’s fine song about the Peasants’ Revolt, so I retaliated with the Two Ronnies Morris song ("the bum, the bum, the bum, the bum")  which was declared “brilliant”. Later essayed Workers of the World Awaken. 

A man who can actually play and sing sang No Women No Cry.

I will not keep this up for seven days, though.