Does anyone else remember the original Maidenhead Folk Club? It started in Bray Village Hall, where I saw John Renbourne one week and the Levee Breakers the next in about 1965 (ah, the wonderful Beverley). Then it moved to the hall at the back of the Prince Albert pub in King Street for a few years. John Foreman, Gerry Loughran (it was always his birthday), Johnny Silvo and many others performed there. I was singing with a group called the Highroaders at the time. After that it shifted to the Dolphin Hotel down by Boulters Lock, where I remember Wally Whyton and Redd Sullivan singing their hearts out. The great blues singer Jo Ann Kelly was a regular and I was once deputed to meet Sandy Denny at Maidenhead Railway Station, near where I lived, and walk her to the Dolphin. About two and a half miles. She didn't say a word the whole way. Maybe she was expecting a taxi. But she was an impressive performer, even though the club had moved for that night only into what was essentially a shed in the garden. I remember thinking that hers was a gutsy way to earn a living.
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