The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #123381 Message #2716698
Posted By: Vic Smith
05-Sep-09 - 08:56 AM
Thread Name: The Newcastle course-Vic Gammon speaks
Subject: RE: The Newcastle course-Vic Gammon speaks
Derek Schofield wrote
"folk clubs - so 1970s don't you think? (ducks for cover - it's a joke!)."
That might not be a very sensible joke for the editor of English Dance & Song to be making as many of your readers will be folk club regulars (though I would not, as others apparently do, want to resort to swearing at you as a result of your making it).
You go on to say:-
Though I would say that some of the younger performers (not just from Newcastle) would benefit from improving their stage presence, performing in front of audiences when they can see their faces, rather than be dazzled by spotlights.
Two of the current students on the Newcastle course - Matt Quinn and Doğan Mehmet - have been honing their performance skills since their were quite young schoolboys by performing floor spots at our folk club at the Royal Oak in Lewes. And they are far from being the only young performers that are coming our way. At our last meeting of the season in July, I said that it was time for the older teenagers like Matt and Doğan to move over as I introduced 13 year old George Smith who had come along to accompany his grandfather's harmonica playing on the banjo. George has the makings of a fine singer as well.
I dare say that there are other folk club organisers who could tell similar stories.