Our strongest program yet

Happy New Year and I hope everyone had a good Christmas.

Our next evening at the club coincides (almost) with my birthday.

And we have George Papavgeris and Cole Stacey.

Should be a good one, with some element of a celebration.

It's that time of year again

We had a reasonable turn out for club regulars Derek & Kitty who gave us a good night. They were supported by new kids on the block Fippenny Piece- a good contrast. And what an excellent Guest MC Alex and Noeleen made. So it was a packed night and I only got to sing one song....

But it was new Christmas Hit.....see the link.

And our last night of the year 17Dec, is a free for all with a Festive feel about it....carols, nibbles, song, music. Quite a few singers lined up so it will be a fun and busy night.

And next year our line up is our strongest yet.

Esp our 3rd Birthday 27May with Martin Carthy and Tim Laycock. That night has an admission charge.

BOO HEWERDINE returns to the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB

Thrilled to announce that Boo is appearing "In Concert" Monday 03May 2010. It will be great. Totally acoustic.

Will sort out the support later.



And afterwards the club presents two "greats"....

MARTIN CARTHY and TIM LAYCOCK, Thursday 27May2010.

An interesting weekend

Well that was an interesting weekend....started off with two sessions on the Friday- one good fun, one not so good. Home late.

Dinner with my daughter on Saturday- superb. Lovely food at the Turks Head, as usual.

Sunday was DurnoVibe- Dorchester, an afternoon of all sorts. I was at what was billed at a folk afternoon, but far too many pub singers singing anything but folk. And the sound could have been better- 3rd time now! The people were fun though. Loads of faces from the past!

But to add a little interest I did improvise as a Bouncer! A troublesome individual finally got the message.

Back to Weymouth for a drink at the Kings Arms with Finnian.

Missed us on WessexFM but a friend recorded it for me,

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS, 27May

Things just got better...not only Martin Carthy, but

TIM LAYCOCK....what a wonderful evening in prospect.


And only £6.

[ exc membership ]

Limited seating.

MARTIN CARTHY at the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB

Our 3rd Birthday celebrations will be enhanced when Martin Carthy is the guest at the club.

May 27th 2010.

Tickets at £6.

It will be great!

The next club fast approaching

A lovely couple from London...Pamela Ward & Paul Cherrington are at the club on Thursday, providing a great mix of music and entertainment. Free admission, but please be generous!

After that a bumper night (22nd OCT) with EMBER supported by Stompin Dave. There is a door charge for this event for a first time trial. If we would like to attract more artists to the club, we have to look at how we run. But it is only a trial.

And the Festival season winds down. BUNKFEST and SWANAGE were great (and dry!) weekends with excellent line-ups.

See you all soon.

Johnny Collins CD

Your chance to grab hold of a wonderful collection of live recordings of Johnny Collins, taken at the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB.

Donations will be made to the RNLI.

£10 each, including a bonus track of an interview with Johnny.

See the web site.

A day at Sidmouth

After the usual early start leaving home at 6am, a wonderfully easy journey, we woke the girls at the Sailing Club for our usual breakfast.
The sun was beautiful and the whole day survived any threat of bad weather. And loads of people took advantage of the sea, sand and pebbles.

And the seafront gradually filled with stalls and dancing and musicians.

Saw loads of friends and spoke with the Appalachian dancers of choice for our "Dancing in Concert" evening.

Also managed to get included at Dukes "Open Stage" although I got the timing wrong for Kittys session so missed out there.

All in all a wonderful day.

Dancing in Concert

Getting close to sorting our first every

"DANCING IN CONCERT"

A chance to see up close, dancing styles performed by some of the top teams in the UK.

Tickets are reasonable at £5 with all the proceeds split between the dancing sides.

And to add some extra variety, we have some songs from our regular duo, Alex n Noeleen.

All in all a really good nights entertainment- and lots of fun.

Sat 26 Sept.

Mirian Backhouse

What a super night....so many songs to join in with. And the audience loved it.

As it turned out, apart from Alex on guitar, it was an all-female evening. But it was superb. Fun too!

Looking forward to Landermason 27Aug. PLUS!!!


Dave Newey and Christi Andropolis are at the club in 2010.

Johnny Collins will be missed

Such sad news of Johnny dying in Poland. Glad we had an opportunity for him to sing at the Sunray. And for him to stay over with us.

I have recordings of the whole night.

Artists returning to the SUNRAY, and more Artists booked

BRAM TAYLOR (or Bram Stoker as our wonderful DORSET ECHO managed to put it!!!) returns to our club and in doing so will be inducted into our own HALL OF FAME. By this time next year we will have six artists in the Hall of Fame- special recognition of those who are booked more than once.

Joining Bram is a duo from London (Sublime to the ridiculous) who first came to the club before we moved to the Village Hall.

And our bookings continue to fill with very few slots left in 2010.

And every artist adds to the variety that is the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB

2nd Birthday at the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB, 28May09

We had a wonderful time, with lots of variety of good music and song. The Quiz kept people quite, and the scoring was not too bad. Two winners share the prize.

And the surprise was a cake made by Jean- wonderful (photo coming soon)

A compilation CD of the evening is being prepared, but in the meantime "Sweet Mystery" can be heard from the web site.

And now the Festival season gets going.

Another FOLK FESTIVAL in Dorset

Can the area take yet another FOLK FESTIVAL?

We already have superb festivals in the shape of Wimborne and Swanage. There are other smaller things too.

But is there room for yet another one?

Sunray is 2 years old

THURSDAY 28May sees the SUNRAY FOLK CLUB celebrate it's second Birthday.

Misic, Song, Food, Fun and the 2nd Sunray QUIZ!!!!!

Come and support us and help the night go well.

And what a night (23apr) we had with Sara Grey & Kieron Means- lovely music!

Sunray Folk Club In concert #3

A wonderful evening of newcomers to the Sunray Folk Club.

Flossie had a wonderful voice and was fun to witness....George did a very good opening spot with some powerful songs.

All in all a very good night. Thanx to those who supported us.

Look out for 23Apr, SARA GREY and KIERON MEANS, with Diana Johnstone and Black Tulip in support- a packed evening of some of the best folk entertainment.

Supporting Swanage

Enjoyed meeting the Swanage twinning folks in Swanage last night. Was MC for Bram Taylor, but ended up performing about 9 songs.

Good fun and thoroughly nice people.

And Bram is a friend, anyway.

Sunshine and Studland, but it was a tad chilly!

And the bars in Swanage are a disaster!

The Askew Sisters

We had a wonderful evening (26Mar09) with these excellent young musicians. Look forward to seeing them again.

And so looking forward to FLOSSIE MALAVIALLE at our 3rd In Concert, Saturday 11Apr09. See the web site for full details. Opening for Flossie is GEORGE PAPAVGERIS.

Recordings from the Sunray

Just received the recordings from "Johnny Collins at the Sunray". Now I have two CD's.

1) Martin Carthy and Paul Downes,

2) Johnny Collins.

Johnny sang too many songs to include the floor singers on the CD!!!! Such a shame.

A wonderful collection.

And a busy time ahead.....The Askew Sisters, our 3rd "In Concert", and Sara Grey...all within the next few weeks.

Exciting....

Johnny Collins comes to the Sunray

New to the area (I think) and a welcome guest replacing Liz Ryder who cancelled her UK tour. Johnny will enjoy the audience who just love to sing. And Nicola Clark will be there too.

Reg Meuross is singing at the club in July- a must see!

And gearing up for our third "In Concert" with Flossie Malavialle and George Papavgeris.

All this after our sell out with Martin Carthy/Paul Downes evening.

Sunray Folk In Concert is a SELL OUT

A lot of people are in for a great night of top notch Folk Music from two of the best. Martin Carthy and Paul Downes.

This is only our second concert and it will be a good one.

Apologies for those that missed out and I hope they will come back. The web site has all the details.

Bob and Vic Sanders and Vo Fletcher

Did a 30 minute support for these guys at the Wessex Acoustic night, and they asked if they could join me for my last song. It was such fun, and the audience loved it and sang well, with the familiar chorus.

You can get a rough idea from the YouTube snippet- go to the web site (hit the title here) and take the link from there.

Happy New Year to you all

Our program for 2009 has a very good kick off with three top folk performers in January.

Our first club night (22nd Jan THURS) features TIM LAYCOCK.

Our second IN CONCERT (31Jan Sat) features MARTIN CARTHY & PAUL DOWNES.

And of course the rest of the year sees a full program, with all details on the web.

Happy New Year to you all.