What a great night, with a wonderful audience including family and friends, for the launch of my solo album. I felt very honoured that so many people were there, and I really didn’t want the evening to finish. Cambridge Folk Club hosted the event (big thanks to Robin and Marion) but let me arrange the whole evening, so I took the opportunity to ask some good friends from the local folk scene if they would like to come and sing as well (and they all said yes please!). So first up for the evening was an eclectic set of traditional and self-penned songs from The Larks, followed by Kelly and Woolley and their self-penned songs, finishing with some stomping cajun tunes, and finally Dan Wilde with his self-penned songs and a great version of a song by the Daws. It was then my turn to perform the first half of the album- just me and my trusty Lowden F35. After the break, Hannah Sanders graced the stage with a couple of beautiful songs, including a very fine version of “River”, followed by Jenna, and two traditional songs from her own repertoire, including the splendid “Queen Eleanor’s Confession”. This heralded the last part of the evening, which was for me to sing the remaining songs from the album, but with the added bonus of Hannah and Jenna providing backing vocals. It was very hard to believe that at the end of singing “Lucy in the Sky” the launch of the album was finished, but not quite. For the encore everyone joined me on stage to sing “Pleasant and Delightful”. I had the best time!
The massed choir for the encore.