Folk-Club-Bonn

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.

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!