Last Friday we played at the wonderful The Grove Folk Club. The club has been going since 1962, not continuously, you understand, but their knowledge of the deep dark traditional folk might lead you to believe they have actually been sat there singing for nearly 60 years!
The floors are scarred from nearly sixty years of people wiggling on their stools to the likes of Wild Mountain Thyme and The Parting Glass. Folk effigies watch from the walls as you sing the very songs they wrote and sung sixty years ago. This is an authentic, bona fide, folk club.
As with all bona fide folk clubs, there was, of course, a raffle. There’s no spiders on you if you noticed the title of this blog piece! Turns out, at The Grove, if you pay the right amount for your raffle ticket (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) then you might get it drawn, not once, not twice, but possibly even, three times. The only downside is…. You may have the same strip of numbers as everyone else in the club. Brings a new meaning to everyone’s a winner. Three very very lucky people, got to walk away with the best coaster they will ever own (a copy of Kootch - Live In The Making Room).
On a very serious note. The club was warm, quaint and exceptionally charming. Brenda (one of several people that take to running the club) has a dry and sharp wit, that we know and love of Leeds lasses. One performer thanked us for listening before he began and a soft smile from Brenda and a quip of ‘we haven’t listened yet!’. If you are wanting a club that knows the songs, sings along, and has floor singers with real old songs too, you’ve found the place!
We think Pete (Beth’s dad) would have been very proud. Not for the quality of performance or excellent timing of puns, but something much more subtle. Pete always joked about rarely being introduced as ‘Pete’ but most often as ‘Beth… And her dad’ much to Beth’s amusement. However, one of the first questions put to Beth was ‘… Are you Pete’s daughter?’. You’ve finally made it Pete. Wish you were there to see it.
Love, Harmonies, Cwtch.
Kootch
x
