Hove Folk Club

Des de Moor: Friday 6th January 2012
Report by Roger Johnson

These days Des de Moor is possibly better known as a writer on beer and rambling, so it’s easy to forget that before he took an extended sabbatical he was widely regarded as one of the UK’s finest chansonniers and the man behind Pirate Jenny’s, at the time the only London club featuring chanson and cabaret. So it was a special treat for us that he had agreed to make his first public singing engagement in three and a half years at Hove Folk Club. And what an evening the small but appreciative audience were to witness.

As is now becoming standard, the floor singers were uniformly excellent. The Bandana Collective keep improving, and we saw Sally’s debut when she played one of those beaty things she usually hands out to others. They included what is fast becoming their signature tune, Awkward, and Soldiers Joy, a real tour de force for Bethan in their two sets. Mike Reinstein again excelled, but perhaps the real star was Richard, who had come all the way from West London to hear Des. As well as his own songs he gave us a setting of W. H. Auden’s long poem, The Night Train. Simply stunning.

And so to our featured guest. Des started and finished with songs from Jacques Brel, Madeleine (possibly the only song to heavily feature both lilacs and chips in the story line) and Marieke and was accompanied on piano by the incomparable David Harrod (possibly best known to those of us from Sussex as a member of Phil Jeays band) and sometimes his own guitar. Des drew songs from all manner of sources. An unaccompanied folk song, The Blacksmith, was followed by a couple of Benjamin Britten’s settings of folk songs, The Foggy Dew being one, and we heard songs from Ray Davies, Leon Rosselson (Jackboot Democrats), Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht (Surabaya Johnny) as well as several of Des’s own songs. Of these, I was especially moved by Grandmother was a Hero, the true story of Des’s German born grandmother who ended up in the Dutch resistance movement, and Cargo about human trafficking. My son, who works in the catering industry, would have liked the sentiments expressed in Avocado.

All too soon the evening was over, but I certainly hope it won’t be another three and a half years before Des takes to the stage again.

Web site: www.desdemoor.com

MySpace: www.myspace.com/desdemoor

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