Tag Archives: singing

Ollie and Malcolm Woods

Ollie and Malcolm Woods at the Frittenden session, 23rd February

Ollie and Malcolm Woods

Sunday the 23rd February is the date of our next Frittenden session at the Bell & Jorrocks, when our featured visitors are Ollie and Malcolm Woods. (The sharp-eyed may remember Malcolm played with the band as a visiting friend at the Harvest Hop back in November.)

Ollie and Malcolm Woods  met 38 years ago at Islington Folk Club when it was still at The Florence just off Upper Street – Seamus Ennis was the guest – and have both been actively involved in traditional music, song, dance and various calendar customs ever since.

Ollie sings and plays bones and Malcolm plays melodeon and sings. Their repertoire is firmly rooted in English music, with a few diversions into the Music Hall, the Victorian parlour and other sources along the way.

Based in Southend-on-Sea, they are nevertheless regular participants in The Hunting Of The Earl of Rone in Combe Martin, Devon and, more recently, The Traditional Sailors’ Hobby Horse in Minehead. They are also annual pilgrims to South Yorkshire during the carolling season and follow the Good Easter Molly Gang on Plough Monday – Ollie and Malcolm danced with Cockleshell Clog and Angel Morris respectively for many years.

Both Ollie and Malcolm appear on Malcolm’s CD Amongst Friends produced by Wren Music of Okehampton (Wren CD018) in 2012. If you stand still long enough he will likely try and sell you a copy…

Peter Collins

Peter Collins sings at the end of December Frittenden session, 29th December

Peter Collins photographed by Jacqui Ross

We’re greatly looking forward to our session with Peter Collins on the evening of the 29th December.

The session is always a moment of sanity in the madness of the Christmas period, and we’re always pleased to welcome our old friend and session regular Peter to chip in with a well-considered selection of songs in line with a reflective time of year, in between the parties of Christmas and the New Year.

We’ll try not to let things get too conventionally Christmassy, but no doubt there will be the odd old carol – and we will have the Nonsuch Mummers along to entertain us. I expect high drama, costumes, a near fatality (and with perhaps a spot or two of corpsing, which is almost the same), and some spirited ad-libbing.

The sessions take place at the Bell & Jorrocks pub at Frittenden, Kent, and start at 8pm and continue until it’s time to sing Nellie Dean and say goodnight. They’re informal and free, with lots of old fashioned and traditional songs and tunes, and a big emphasis on variety, humour and entertainment generally – as we like to say, if you liked your pub the way it was before the telly and the computer came, this is the event for you.