Sounds like home

In summer, a young man’s fancy turns to…folk music?

Well, it does in our household. Our spare room resembles a small music shop with 4 violins, 3 guitars, 2 mandolins, a cello and a dulcimer. My Darling English Boy is an avid musician, and the vocalist-guitarist for local folk duo, Lazy Manz Flute.

Being only “vaguely musical”, my contributions to the band’s efforts are purely supportive. As their principal groupie, I have followed them to various gigs across Warwickshire, and thus have been introduced to the wonderful world of English traditional music.

The most significant event of the Warwickshire folk calendar is the Warwick Folk Festival every July. Last year, I followed Lazy Manz Flute to a “session” at The Roebuck on the Festival’s opening night. This event was a musical free-for-all. Whoever showed up was welcome to participate.

Dating back to 1470, The Roebuck is said to be the oldest pub in Warwick. With its dark, beamed ceilings so low that even I felt tall, it was the perfect conduit for this timeless music.

The tiny pub was packed with performers singing and playing an array of instruments: banjoes, fiddles, spoons, bagpipes, harmonicas, mandolins, accordions, whistles, bodhrans and guitars. I recall an ancient man sitting alone playing “the bones”. There was no predetermined format, one musician merely started to play, and the others joined in, as they willed.

The evening was a wonderful time warp, stepping back to a time before television, cinema or the internet; when people had to make their entertainment. It was a delight to hear songs from Britain’s bygones days: tragic tales of star-crossed lovers, sea shanties, highwaymen’s laments, and ballads in praise of the ever-present barmaid.

To my surprise, the experience was at once novel and familiar. This music of England’s past, immediately reminded of my own. If no one had spoken, I could easily have imagined myself in the Ozarks, the foothills of Appalachia, or along the Mississippi Delta. The same tales, told in different voices, in similar keys.

This ‘novel, yet familiar’ quality is what I admire most about traditional English music. A firm favourite of mine is Kate Rusby – a lovely Yorkshire lass with a long standing affection for Warwickshire.

This past May, Rusby gave a spectacular show at the Royal Spa Centre. During that performance, her partner, Damine O’Kane, an impassioned banjo player, sang a doleful lament for his native Northern Ireland, called “Summer Hill”. He sang longingly of a place I have never seen; and yet, I was struck deeply by how familiar it felt and sounded.

This is the remarkable thing about traditional music. It crosses cultures and geography and binds us through common experiences, narratives and harmonies. A friend of mine put it thus: “It resonates, because it’s all the same people.” Meaning, of course, that culturally the English-speaking world is the same at its heart. Perhaps, that is what makes folk music so fantastic. Fancy that.

Warwick Folk Festival, 23-25 July 2010 - www.warwickfolkfestival.co.uk

Festive feelings

Not so long ago, I used to dread Christmas. My feelings of holiday doom and gloom could be begin as early as October, or July. Thankfully, all of that has changed.

It would sound quite, quite trivial to say, "Ah, the difference a Darling English Boy can make." And, I certainly do mean more than that. Perhaps, the phrase I am looking for is: "Ah, the difference Love can make." (A hard-won love at that.)

To that, I could add the difference a change of location and lifestyle can make. Living in New York, I always felt and knew I was in the cultural capital of the universe -- at least as far as New Yorkers are concerned, at any rate.

There are always an endless array of activities and events in which to take part in the City. One could die of many things in the City, but, to be sure, boredom would never be one of them!

However, even with the prospect of being surrounded by such limitless choice, more often than not, I found myself tucked away in my little West Village apartment watching telly -- BBC America, not doubt.

It's a common ailment in the City, I'd call it: Familiarphobia.

Being so used to having so much around you, nothing really seems exceptional.

And maybe, added to that is the dilemma of being a single girl in the City. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I always found it a monumental task to coordinate dates, times and schedules with my overly busy New York friends: "Let's go on Saturday...Can't do Saturday, let's go Thursday..." and on and on, until we never went at all.

By contrast, in my new British life, I always seem on the go! There always seems to be some happening or event on the calendar, especially at Christmas. And I love it!

Here in Barford, entertainment is serious business. To be sure, with two art galleries in our tiny locale, we certainly have more than our fair share of artisans and craftsmen and women. But really, there is more talent in this village than you could shake a stick at!

Every year the Barford Drama Group produces a "Music Hall" -- a little variety show with singing, dancing, comedy sketches and lots and lots of laughs.

The humour skirts the edges of blue, and certainly merits a PG-13 stamp. And, I have never laughed so long and hard in my life!

One of my favorite numbers was a rendition of a tune about Anne Boleyn, called "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" -

In the Tower of London, large as life

the ghost of Anne Boleyn walks, they declare

For Anne Boleyn was once King Henry's wife

until he had the axe-man bob her hair

Ah yes, he done her wrong long years ago

And she comes back each night to tell him so

Chorus:

With her head tucked underneath her arm

she walks the bloody tower.

With her head tucked underneath her arm

at the midnight hour.

She's gonna find King Henry, she's giving him what for

Gadzooks she's gonna tell him off for having spilled her gore

And just in case the axe-man wants to give her an encore

She's got her head tucked underneath her arm

Chorus

Along the drafty corridors, for miles and miles she goes

She sometimes catches cold, poor dear, it's chilly when it blows

And it's awfully awkward for the queen when she has to blow her nose

With her head tucked underneath her arm

Chorus

Now sometimes old King Henry throws a spread

For all his pals and gals, the ghostly crew

The axe-man carves the joints and cuts the bread

When in walks Anne Boleyn to spoil the do

She holds her head up with a wild war whoop

And Henry cries, "Don't drop it in the soup!"

Chorus

One day she found King Henry, and he was in the castle bar

And he said, "Are you Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn, or Catherine Parr?

"Well how the heck am I supposed to figure who you are,

"When you've got your head tucked underneath your arm?"

"Music Hall" is a big event in Barford. Tickets are hard to come by, we were unable to get tickets for love nor money last year, as we were too slow on the jump.

The day tickets go on sale there is a mad rush, and punters form an early morning queue outside Jane and Rod's house -- as early as 7 a.m.! You would have thought it was tickets for the Rolling Stones, or the like.

The DEB and I are flirting with the idea of joining the Drama Group in 2010. I stress we are only flirting with the idea. It could be fun, though.

The week following the Music Hall was the Church Christmas Dinner, another fun-filled occasion with the requisite annual Christmas pantomime featuring more stage acts but a number of different performers than those in the Music Hall. Talent, upon talent in these parts.

The highlight of the Christmas Dinner is the the featured entertainment provided by the highly musical Williams family, Barford's answer to the Von Trapps. They are simply amazing.

I failed to mention earlier the annual Harvest Supper that happens in early autumn, another Barfordian excuse for wine, good food and merriment.

Wine, Food and Merriment seem to be common themes, and another wonderfully recurring element is our resident Magician and Man of Mystery: "The Great Barloni".

(Surely every English village has its own Magician?)

Speaking of magic, a couple of enchanting events that are now fixtures in the DEB household Christmas traditions: "The Nutcracker". This year, we saw the Vienna Festival Ballet perform The Nutcracker in Leamington Spa. Fabulous.

There is something about "The Nutcracker," that always takes me back to the golden days of my childhood.

I first saw "The Nutcracker" at the age of 7, at Ballet Arkansas. My sister performed in it as one of the Flower Maidens in "Waltz of the Flowers."

That was back when people knew how to dress for the theatre, and my memory of it is coloured with little girls with satin bows in their hair, wearing lush velvet dresses in dark, jewel tones; shepherded by lean, elegant women in furs, pearls, and diamonds, smelling of Chanel No. 5.

Whenever I see "The Nutcracker", I am there again, 7 years old; and I cannot help but cry.

Laughter is also part of our Christmas tradition, and the past two weeks have been utterly hilarious. We saw Marcus Brigstocke in Warwick, and got to meet him after the show. He is a very tall man.

This week it was a road trip with the DEN (Darling English Nephew) to Birmingham to see Russell Howard live at the NIA. Russell Howard defies description. I think he is a tremendous comedian, but also a brilliant social observer/commentator. And, he's just plain funny.

The weekend was capped off last night by a wonderful Christmas concert at the Warwick Arts Centre by Kate Rusby. She's a doll, and the show was a real treat. She performed a series of old English carols, and was accompanied by her band and members of the Coldstream Guards.

It was a magical evening, that really got us in the Christmas spirit. And as we came out of the Arts Centre, we discovered a smattering of snow!! Holly Jolly Joy!

Festivities continue today with an afternoon Carol Service at St. Peter's. (The DEB is doing a reading, I shall be there as the proud, beaming Wifey!)

Handel's Messiah, a few remaining Christmas cards, tree decorating, and baking still to done!!! Holly, jolly indeed!