Here are the latest videos of Eddie and Maggie performing at Cornwall Folk Festival in 2022.
As none of us had appeared at the Festival for some time, Eddie decided to use our slot to commemorate some people who left us during the pandemic (but not necessarily owing to the virus). These included the great American singer-songwriter John Prine, the cricketer Sonny Ramadhin (!), and our great friend Mike Walford, former organiser of Cornwall Folk Festival, Crantock Festival, co-organiser of Wadebridge Folk Club, and a man who lliked nothing better than to get people together to SING!
Here are the tracks:
Perhaps the best known of John Prine’s early songs, about a fate which befell all too many US veterans, especially from the Vietnam war. John himself served in the military, in Germany, so he may have known comrades who experienced these issues.
Our tribute to our friend Mike Walford, consisting of one of Mike’s own songs (Blues keep followin’ me), and Tom Paxton’s Ramblin’ Boy; a song which references Mike’s nickname given him by Malcolm Pinch, the ‘Bard of Bodmin’.
A calypso is not really our kind of repertoire, but this one is probably the most famous of all time, and celebrates the first ‘away’ victory by the West Indies cricket team over England in June 1950. Its composer was Egbert Moore, who performed under the name ‘Lord Beginner’. The song refers to several protagonists in the match, including the spin bowlers Sonny Ramadhin (d. February 2022, aged 92) and Alf Valentine, who together took 18 of the 20 England wickets to fall during the game.
We learned this very fine song by the Irish songwriter Tom Reid from John ‘Breezy’ Breeze, and included it in our set on the grounds that the pandemic has seen the explosion of ‘fake news’ and truth masquerading as lies.
John Prine Medley (Paradise, Spanish Pipedream)
We finished our set with two more songs by John Prine, Paradise, which refers to the district of Western Kentucky where John’s family hailed from, and Spanish Pipedream which describes an encounter in a bar between a ‘topless’ dancer (very much a new phenomenon in 1971 when the song appeared.
After John died, half his ashes were buried alongside his parents in Chicago, and the other half scattered, according to his wishes, over the waters of the Green River. As Ursula Leguin wrote, ‘No journey is ever ended until you come home’.
NB: Many thanks to our great friend (Rad)Max Rowse De Franco for videos.