Numbers were down a bit at today’s sing around session, for which I’d largely blame the sun and warmth outside! That meant I got to lead on more songs than usual, all using the double bass.

Mo was busy looking after the refreshments counter at the start so she asked me to welcome people and kick things off, so I picked a familiar song to begin with: Folsom Prison Blues. That is familiar to me but also well known by many of the others there and easy to follow along with. When it came round again, my next choice met neither of those criteria. Black Hole Sun, originally released by Soundgarden (1994!) is a gorgeous but complex song that I’ve heard many versions of but never tried. It went okay but I will need to do some more refinement.

On my next turn, I continued to walk on the wild side with Black Betty. That was made famous by Ramjam in the 1970s but had previously been recorded by Lead Belly and other blues artists and that was the approach I went for. The original song is probably much older and nobody really knows whether it is referring to a nasty prison whip, a rifle or just a lady called Betty. My final contribution was back to a familiar tune for me: Down in the Hole. That is relatively easy to join in with but, as a 16 bar blues, takes a little more listening that the more common 12 bar form.