Old fashioned songs in the 21st century
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Julie Atkin, Melodeon, Old fashioned song, Traditional song, Uncategorized on Dec 19th, 2011
Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron and Nobody Knows You when You’re Down and Out are a couple of songs we’ve been singing in the sessions and folk clubs lately – so we thought it was time to share them. Dashing is a bit of a departure for Julie, who usually leaves traditional songs to [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Jeffries duet concertina, Julie Atkin, Old fashioned song on Feb 26th, 2011
This is another song from our visit to the Royal Oak at Lewes last week, with Julie right on song and the tina sounding mellow. Didn’t Frank Loesser just write some corking songs?
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Traditional song on Feb 26th, 2011
I learned this song as a teenager from the famous Leader album of songs collected in Lincolnshire by Percy Grainger more than a hundred years ago. But somehow have never got around to singing it in public before our gig at our Folk at the Royal Oak gig this week. We think it’s quite a [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Julie Atkin, Melodeon on Sep 24th, 2010
We thought it would be fun to try an experiment – accompanying Julie’s singing using the melodeon. We imagined it would make a nice change and this is the result! The song was originally composed by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and a very nice, deceptively simple piece of work it is.
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Melodeon on Sep 23rd, 2010
Frankie drew back her kimono, pulled and old 44 Then it’s rooty-toot-toot through that bar-room door… I guess this is what you get when a guitarist of four decades takes up the melodeon – a crazy old American song, with a bit of triplet-blues feel creeping in! One of the important things I’ve found about [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Jeffries duet concertina, Julie Atkin on Sep 22nd, 2009
We’ve been learning some new songs ahead of a gig at Islington Folk Club on the 1st October – and this is one of them. Julie and I think it’s a hoot – Frank Loesser’s chords for Slow boat to China alone are wild and wonderful. The splendid postcard of the liner United States is [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Jeffries duet concertina, Julie Atkin, Uncategorized on Sep 1st, 2009
Oxfordshire’s Towersey Festival is an almost overwhelming experience – colourful, crowded, exuberant and crammed with good music, singing, dancing and a range of other entertainments. Gav was involved with several this year including a dance band booking with Florida and some workshops to lead. So on Sunday lunchtime we took the opportunity to drop into [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Jeffries duet concertina, Julie Atkin, Uncategorized on Aug 23rd, 2009
Julie and Gav and friends address an age-old question! This is a recording of Julie and Gavin Atkin at a session at the Bell & Jorrocks, Frittenden, Kent in mid-August 2009. It was made by fellow concertinist Brian Hawes of Hastings – many thanks Brian! Informal old-fashioned music sessions at the pub take place regularly [...]
Posted in Gavin Atkin, Jeffries duet concertina, Julie Atkin, Uncategorized on May 15th, 2009
Our plan is to build a site here to promote the singing and playing of Julie and Gavin Atkin. Julie is a superb singer who particularly enjoys singing old-fashioned popular songs, while Gavin plays the rarely seen Jeffries duet concertina. Here’s a sample of Julie and Gav performing I’m gonna sit right down and write [...]