John Graham, Jim Jack and Cy Jack

How nice it is to be reacquainted with the many weel-kent faces o’ the folk club. The festive period has long disappeared in the rear-view mirror and the sat-nav has strict instructions to take us swiftly to Springland, snowdrops popping their heads up, nights drawing out, winter loosening its icy grip on our pipes… and all that.

What better way to formally kick start the 2025 folk club calendar than a heart-warming soiree with John and Jim… and Cy. Cy is Cy Jack; unbilled, but very present. He plays keyboards, a covetable acoustic bass guitar and possesses a lovely singing voice. They say he’s no relation of Jim’s but my chanceometer app says there’s only a 3.84 percent chance of two people accidentally sharing the same surname in a band. Maybe he changed it by deed-poll, maybe they auditioned lots of candidates until they found someone surnamed Jack; maybe I’m actually talking mince and should just get on with the review. I will, I will.

John and Jim have been playing folk clubs since the 1960s and that tradition is very much in evidence, acknowledging – and they do – that no Conservatoire degrees are on offer, they simply serve up a full Scottish of good songs, good playing and good ‘bantz’.

‘We’re all septuagenarians’ they tell us… ‘not strictly, we still eat fish’ hits the funny bone. ‘Help us out, we have CDs for sale… we’re poor pensioners, we’ve had our winter heating allowance taken from us and Christmas is just round the corner’ – it’s February remember - is an amusing variation on the drearily prosaic ‘buy our CDs’.

Highlights were many.

‘The Lassie of the Morning’, written by singer and journalist Jack Foley – a pal and - in their telling – a staunch curmudgeon. A love song that describes a woman's beauty in the context of a mountain hike – ‘a love affair that probably lasted a weekend’. Interestingly, I looked up the tune and found a tale about Archie Fisher. He learned the song over the telephone, and all the words he couldn’t make out, he translated into something to do with the Borders. With customary folk rigour, that version of the song now qualifies as a Borders song.

‘Blackadder Water’ is a lovely touching ballad for a lost friend who shared a love of fishing. Iain Ingram’s ‘Braes O’ Appin’, with its tasteful piano accompaniment – ‘a holiday romance that lasted forever’ – is gorgeous.

But it’s not all just singing, Ivan Drever’s slow air ‘Leaving Stoer’ is played beautifully on the fiddle by John.

Lovely three-part harmonies rang on the Cy sung ‘We’ll Walk the Road Together’ - plaintive with nice fiddle decoration.

Jimmy Nail’s ‘The Big River’ takes us one step removed from ‘trad’; yes, it’s about the Tyne but very fitting for the – much closer to home - glorious Clyde.

Rounding off the evening John, Jim and Cy had everyone singing Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’ for which John produced a harmonica - ‘I’m a shite harmonica player… but so was Bob’.

So, another beautiful evening at the Folk Club, great company, good crack and ear tickling sounds in the mighty and majestic Community Hall. As they say round here… braw!

Words by Callum MacLeod photos by Peter Salkeld.