Morrigan Songsheet

...and Morrigan were certainly kept busy over the last month!

We began with album launch at the Charlton House Wassail. Unfortunately John Kirkpatrick was unable to perform due to the sudden death of his wife and we were thrust unexpectedly into the top slot. We had some good supporters and did our best to muster as many friends as we could to come. We send our heart felt condolences to John and his family and hope he may revisit Charlton House later this year. The gig went very well and we rounded off our performance with a set of sing a long carols for the audience and other performers on various instruments including Chris E making his debut on cornett. We were completely blown away by the amazing review in the Greenwich Visitor and we are as ever indebted to Louisa and her fantastic team at GFMA for their support and organisation - not to mention selling our CDs.

Later in the same week we were honoured to be supporting the fantastic Les Barker at TwickFolk. The Cabbage Patch is a great venue and the acoustics really suited our voices with some good mixing from the TwickFolk team. Les Barker was so funny we spent most of the night with tears of laughter running down our face. We had a brilliant evening and hope to return to this friendly club soon

Our next stop was a live recording with Doug Welch at BBC Radio Kent. We braved the wind and the rain to make it down to the Tunbridge Wells' studio. The recording went well and Doug put us at ease. It was strange driving back with the radio on and hearing ourselves singing.

We also heard that Mike Norris had played The Gower Wassail on his Folk Show at The Wireless UK which was a nice bonus and were feeling quite the radio stars by Christmas! We now knoe that we have invitations to The Cellar Upstairs in March and hope to find a mutually convenient slot at Music Traditions as unfortunately we were already booked for an invited date.

January proved busy again ....more on that next month

Happy New Year to our followers!

Photos below of the stage and us performing at Charlton House Wassail and of us singing at TwickFolk

Shiver me timbers ! Morrigan returned from their August break to take part in The Tall Ships Festival 2014 at the Deepwater Terminal on the Greenwich Penninsular. thanks to an invitation from Global Fusion Music & Arts (GMFA). We were to take part in some busking around the site and a performance slot at 5pm for an hour. We struggled from the car park carrying a variety of instruments including a large bass drum. Sarah managed to make friends with a man on a mobility scooter and he offered to carry some of the gear. We rewarded him with one of our CDs.

After lunch we went to our first busking post near the embarkation for one of the tall ships. It was a great backdrop with the boats in full sail (and a hidden engine we suspect) drifting up and down the Thames. Unfortunately there were no seats so we had to leave the drum back at the parade ground.

We returned to the main arena at 3pm to hear Chris Harrison perform his solo spot and to join in on a few choruses. We were pleased to see an advert for our gig at 5pm (see photo below). Then we returned to busking - this time just outside the performance area where we found a low wall to sit on so we could use the drum. This bought a real beat to the music and we soon even had the police dancing to our tunes. Passers by chiucked money (and amazingly nothing else) at us which was very gratifying.

We then went on stage and sang our songs for an hour. Chris H decided to make reference to the various catering establishments in Roll the Old Chariot Along before he realised how many there were and had he gone through everyone we would have had to stay until midnight. So we cut it short and offered an apology to those we did not covertly advertise! We had a fantastic time and even sold some CDs.

Now we turn our attention to practice for our amazing gigs in October. This kicks off with The Tenterden Folk Festival 2014 on October 3rd - 5th, followed by Croydon Folk & Blues Club and then the Brandenburg Fringe Festival at the Old Cheshire Cheese later in the month. In December we have the GFMA Charlton House Wassail supporting John Kirkpatrick where we will officially launch our album

Well we have finally finished our long awaited CD "As the crow flies" and have released it under the GFMA label with many thanks to our long time supporter Louisa and everyone at Charlton House. Our official launch won't be until later this year at Charlton House when we will be supporting John Kirkpatrick. We will publish the date as soon as it is available so you can book your tickets. Meanwhile you can buy your own copy of the CD from this website. The postcard that is free with the CD can be adapted to make an insert with details of the songs we sing.

It has been an admin month for the band and getting bookings sorted for the Autumn and beyond. We have events at Croydon Folk and Blues Club, Tenterden Folk Festival, The Brandenburg Fringe Festival at the Old Cheshire Cheese and Charlton House as major events confirmed for later this year as well as our regular Two Brewers slots. Keep a close eye on the diary as bookings arrive for next year too!

We are taking a break over August and so wish all our followers a sunny summer holiday!

We had a very busy time in June with lots going on and yet we were still out clubbing into the early hours - well maybe that's not entirely true but we did sing at a few folk clubs and received a warm welcome from organisers and guests alike.

Our first visit following the Two Brewers regular slot was Otford Fok Club in Kent with Steve Turner. We sang 3 songs in great surroundings of a really old beamy pub. It was packed but it was great that everyone joined in on our choruses. We will try and get down to Kent again before too long.

Next up was The Ram Folk Club in Thames Ditton. We were given a slot to sing two songs before a performance by Alan Reid and Rob Van Sante - luckily we chose not to sing a couple of numbers that the guests had included in their repertoire later that evening! We rushed to the club after doing the final tweaking to our CD. We were given a lovely welcome and hope tor return to this great club before too long.

We rounded off the month at TwickFolk The Cabbage Patch in Twickenham. We sang a couple of songs - The White Cockade and The Cropper Lads to a very welcoming audience. We were overwhelmed by the number of people who said how nuch they had enjoyed our music including the talented guests Winter Wilson. Again we hope to return here for some more singing.

And so now as things quieten down for the summer we are concentrating on getting our CD produced and ready for launch in the Autumn. We thank the wonderful Louisa at Global Fusion Music and Arts for allowing us on their label and for continuing to give us high profile gigs at Charlton House