Today I decided to take a regular guitar along to the sing around at All Saints Thorpe Acre church hall in Loughborough. I planned to make an early getaway, due to a gig this evening but I ended up staying for most of it.

I led a couple of songs. The first was You Wreck Me by Tom Petty. When I take it down to D, the chords suit the guitar and the range of the melody suits my voice although the original, for Tom’s slightly higher range, was done in F. My second contribution was I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash. I introduced it by remarking that, when I first heard it, I wondered what Lorraine had done that was so bad (if you know the lyrics, that will make sense). After I’d finished, another wit observed that they thought it was “I can see Clare Lee now Lorraine has gone!”. I did that one in G although I wonder if I need to take it down a notch or two. Most of it sits quite well but, if I want to take the last line up an octave, I might need to be starting a tone or so lower!

The main reason I stayed longer than originally planned was that John Hunter asked if I could back him up on a medley he was doing (Sweet Georgia Brown / Ain’t She Sweet / Five Foot Two). That was a fun opportunity although I had to bring out quite a few of the “expensive” jazz chords to keep up.