Folk Club on 10 April 2026 on the theme of ‘Miracles’
Strictly speaking, no special contributions would be needed
on this topic, as everything that happens in and around the Folk Club is akin
to a miracle. Since February 2010, this miracle has provided musicians with an
uncomplicated platform for their songs eleven times a year, offered numerous
listeners wonderful entertainment on Friday evenings, brought the pub landlord
a healthy turnover, and, moreover, given everyone who attends a place for
communication, exchange and getting to know one another. Numerous connections
between musicians have had their beginnings here. All this came about without
much publicity and essentially through word of mouth. Certainly, the possibilities of the internet
have also played their part in the Folk Club Bonn quickly becoming well-known.
Moreover, the absence of electric amplification creates a very special, close
connection between musicians and audience. The Italian musician Serena Finatti,
who is returning to us in May with her partner Andrea Varnier, described the
atmosphere at the Folk Club in her blog years ago as “Momenti veramente magici”
(truly magical moments). In her honour, we have chosen this phrase as the theme
for the evening of 1 May.
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Things took a less wondrous, yet thoughtful, turn with the three blues
numbers with which John Harrison (vocals and guitar) and Christoph Thiebes
(harmonica) opened the evening. Danny Kortchmar’s “Machine Gun Kelly” is more
about the path to ruin taken by the gangster in the song. The story of “St.
James Infirmary” (an American folk song) is also rather sombre. Here, in the
finest blues tradition, the oppressive events in a hospital for the poor are
described. The beloved wife dies there. The pair concluded their performance
with Robert Johnson’s “Rambling On My Mind”. Significantly, the rather brief
lyrics of the song also deal with an ending – the end of a relationship, to be
precise. The narrator feels mistreated by his girlfriend and leaves her. There
was plenty of applause for the pair, whose blues interpretations never fail to
please.
Kathrin Kangro began her performance feeling a little
nervous. She had been to the Folk Club before, but on that occasion she had
performed as part of a choir. This time, she stood before the audience with
just her guitar. Her nervousness was, however, unnecessary, for with her
crystal-clear voice, flawless intonation and confident guitar accompaniment,
she immediately won over the audience. “Here’s Health To The Company” tells the
story of emigration from Ireland and also from Scotland – essentially a rather
sombre period for those affected. “Hard Times Come Again No More” is also about
sorrow and suffering. This song by Steven Foster from 1854, which was sung and
played frequently during the American Civil War, holds particular significance
these days and has, in fact, remained relevant almost throughout the entire
period since its creation. Kathrin concluded her performance with the timeless
“Danny Boy” and received a warm round of applause.
Gerald Matuschek (guitar and vocals), this time joined by
singer Judith and Johann on the cajón, presented the song “Wünsche” by the duo
Carolin No. This song, too, had never been heard at the Folk Club before. The
two-part passages by Judith and Gerald were very beautiful. On “Rain” by the
duo Ferris and Sylvester, Judith was able to fully showcase her vocal
qualities. I was particularly impressed by the a cappella opening of the song.
Despite the challenging melody with its chromaticism, the melody was perfectly
in tune when the guitar came in – hats off to Judith. Moments like this are
always nerve-wracking for choirs and soloists. The audience’s applause was
correspondingly enthusiastic.
Dany Habermann, alias ‘Reminder’, has for some time now been
using the Folk Club as a stage for his new songs. He kicked off his set with
‘First Day Of Spring’, fitting for both the season and the theme (spring is a
miracle anew every year). ‘Be The Change’, based on a quote by Mahatma Gandhi,
then added a little to the evening’s theme. The lyrics of the very rhythmic
“Storytellers” tell us that, through stories, we can shape the world just as we
would like it to be.
Hans Ihnen sat down at the piano again this time (it
urgently needs tuning!). “Wenn Millionäre schlafen gehn” by Hans Hartz sings of
the eternal theme of “rich and poor”. The song “What A Wonderful World” by Bob
Thiele and George David Weiss, first sung in 1967 by the inimitable Louis
Armstrong, fitted the theme well. The song was released in the midst of the
Vietnam War and stood in stark contrast to the daily horror stories coming out
of South-East Asia. There was some controversy in the US regarding its performance.
In Europe, however, the song was extremely successful and remains very well
known to this day.
Pierluigi Petricca, the evening’s featured artist – who also
goes by the name PG – had been waiting patiently up to that point, but we hope
he enjoyed the songs. From then on, ‘PG’ got down to business with his
impressive raspy voice and captivating guitar skills. He kicked off his set
with ‘Pasqualine’, sung in the Italian dialect of his native Abruzzo.
‘Pasqualine’ refers to an Easter pastry made of dough, Swiss chard and a boiled
egg hidden inside. Unfortunately, due to a lack of language skills and the Italian
hidden behind the local dialect, what PG was trying to convey with this song
remained a mystery. The internet offered no clarification either. So all that
remains for us is to listen to the wonderful melody, the impressive vocals and
the beautiful guitar accompaniment. ‘La mattina avreste’, a blues track played
with a bottleneck, is, as far as I could make out, about a farmer who gets up
early every day to work his fields. Like the previous songs, written by PG
himself but in English, is the track “Bad Days”, which PG penned during the
lockdown in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. PG concluded his first set
with Charly Patton’s “Pony Blues” from 1929. Here too, PG employed the
bottleneck technique.
In the second part of his performance, he kicked off with
the song “Terra” from his latest album of the same name. What lies behind this
beautiful song with its sad and melancholic melody? Anyone who speaks Italian
well is welcome to get in touch with me. You can listen to the song online or
here with me, as I’ve bought the CD. Understanding the lyrics of “I Keep On
Drinking” by Blind Willie McTell isn’t particularly difficult. The rather
sparse lyrics simply deal with chasing away bad thoughts by consuming a fair
amount of alcohol. That usually doesn’t end well. “Ascise alla panchina” is
about separation. A couple decides to elope, but the woman doesn’t show up at
the station as agreed. So the man decides to leave on his own. A wonderfully
sad melody, fitting for the occasion – that’s my favourite song!
A song from
the traditional blues repertoire is Robert Johnson’s “I Believe I’ll Dust My
Broom”. In this Delta blues-style track, as is so often the case in the blues,
it’s about the girlfriend running away and the singer wanting to look for
something new. Incidentally, the song features the standard phrase “When I woke
up in the morning”. The lyrics are sparse, but the music surrounding them is
wonderful, especially when played by a specialist like PG and, on top of that,
accompanied by a harmonica virtuoso like Christoph Thiebes.
‘Ninna Nanna’ comes from a completely different corner. It
is a traditional lullaby from PG’s homeland. I wouldn’t fall asleep to PG’s
rendition, but I do like the song. PG took a trip into the world of country
music with the song ‘Sugar Cane’. It’s impressive how PG uses the bottleneck.
To round off his performance, there was another song from the Mississippi Hills
by R.L. Burnside. The song’s creator, who passed away in 2005, must have been
applauding heartily from heaven. The audience, in any case, were thrilled.
Yes, folks, as PG played both before and after the interval
and I didn’t want to split my report into two parts, here’s a bit more about
the other pieces from the second half of the evening. Kicking things off after
the interval was – how could it be otherwise – John Harrison once again, with a
poem fitting for the season. It celebrates the dandelion, a plant John has
taken particularly to his heart. The poem is titled ‘Dan D Lion’, which is a
play on the French name for this plant: ‘Dent de lion’, meaning dandelion.
Funnily enough, the French commonly call the dandelion ‘piss-en-lit’, as it has
a strong diuretic effect when eaten. Be that as it may, the plant is lovely to
look at when it’s in bloom, but the gardener pulls it up whenever he can, as it
spreads like the devil, and the roots cling to every tiny crack.
Musically, things continued with John Hay, who performed the
song “Crazy” by the duo Gnarls Barkley on stage. By the end, you find yourself
wondering who’s actually crazy – the singer or the outside world? Musically,
the song came across wonderfully. Thematically, the song “Wonderwall” by Oasis
suited the evening perfectly. The somewhat cryptic lyrics do, after all, deal
with the concept of wonder. During “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, John had
a slight slip-up with the lyrics, which he overcame wonderfully with the
enthusiastic help of the audience – the song is quite long anyway. A verse or
two less doesn’t matter. Instrumentally and vocally, John is top-notch as
always – lots of applause from the audience.
This time, Mario Dompke had brought along a couple of new
songs. “Ich muss mit dir sprechen” deals with autism. With beautiful shifts in
key on the guitar, Mario captures the emotional world of people with autism – a
wonderful song about a difficult subject. Mario’s musical setting of a
“Dachbodenfund” that followed was absolutely moving. A letter from his
grandfather Otto, written and sent to his brothers from the front in France
during the First World War, describes the horrors of military service in simple
yet powerful words. Mario used the text word for word and set it to music – a
brilliant idea and impressively executed. “Euer Bruder Otto” is the title of
the song. “Together in a Boat That’s Too Small” is a call to everyone
to campaign for change – but which changes are the right ones? Unfortunately,
opinions differ on this.
Our “new recruit” Rick Fines made a brief appearance, following his recent Canadian tour.
“That’s How I Feel” is the title of the blues track by Brownie McGhee, and I
don’t need to say much about how Rick performed it – magnificent! Rick then
produced a little gem with the song “How Did You Know I Missed You?”. There’s a
little story behind the song: Rick wrote it for a friend for his wife’s
birthday. The wife had wished to perform on stage with Rick at her birthday
party. On the way to the party, Rick cobbled the song together, in which an imaginary
Louis Armstrong and an equally imaginary Ella Fitzgerald sing a duet. Here with
us, Rick performed both vocal parts himself – great fun and, to top it all off,
finished with Armstrong’s trumpet coming from Rick’s mouth – fantastic!
That’s it for this time, even if it wasn’t described in the
correct order at the end.
And so another wonderful Folk Club evening came to an end,
not without paying tribute to the Folk Club’s patron, Jock Stewart, with a song
sung together: ‘A man you don’t meet every day’.
Next month, the Folk Club will open its doors again on the
correct date, the first Friday, which falls on 1 May. We are once again
expecting musicians from Italy as featured artists: Serena Finatti and her
partner Andrea Varnier, who have already enchanted us twice in the past. We
have chosen the motto accordingly: “Momenti veramente magici” – “Truly magical
moments”. Incidentally, we didn’t come up with that ourselves. These are
Serena’s own words from her blog following her first performance at the Folk Club
in June 2016 – do take a look at the report on that evening on our website. (The Folk Club Bonn Blog is Google-based and as such it has a wonderful search function. At the top left-hand corner of the blog, after the Google Blog symbol, 
is a white space with a magnifying glass to the right:
Here you can look up and check on any performer or any time period from the last sixteen years of Bonn Folk Club history.
But
even more importantly, come along to the Folk Club on 1st May to see and hear Serena & Andrea and enjoy a little bit of musical and theatrical Italian magic!
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