Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England. If you came to this page via a search engine then you have just found one page of our archive of 160+ monthly newsletters which may contain the information you are looking for. You can also click HERE to go to the main site which contains a wealth of text files, audio streams, video, musical information, items for sale, notice board and contact information for the UK accordion scene For Accordion CD's DVD's Music Books and other items for sale visit our shop at |
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| Leyland Accordion Club - 16th March 2005
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Our March ConcertOut March concert opened with an amazing amount of players for a guest artist night, but I was determined to try and fit them all in. First on to the stage was Colin Ensor playing What More Can I Say, Down Forget Me Not Lane, Getting Sentimental Over You and The Maigret Theme. Bill Agnew then played Georgia On My Mind, Alpine Slopes, Someone To Watch Over Me and Orange Blossom Special. Our next players were Basil Berry with S'Wunderful and Nearness Of you, followed by Linda Grant playing Gaeity Waltz, Cherrybank and an Irish Rover Medley because St. Patricks Day was nearby. Ray Peacock was our next performer with Beautiful Days and Bel Viso. It was now time for our guest artist Harry Hussey to take to the stage. Harry did his usual theme of asking for requests from the audience which he then proceeded to play. The first requests from the floor were for some Trad Jazz tunes, followed by Poor Butterfly, Take Five, Beguine The Beguine, Summertime by Cole Porter, The Entertainer, 12th St. Rag, Girl From Ipponema, It Aint What You Do It's The Way That You Do It, Tea For Two, South Rampart St. Parade, Stardust, Feelings, How High Is The Moon, Cest Si Bon and lastly before the break, September Song. After the break we continued with Rebecca Parker playing Bianca Capanna; Ann Parker playing Sonatina No. 1 in G; Alan Gelling with Let Me Call You Sweetheart; John Higham playing and singing Dorothy. Derek Corlett played Return To Sorrento and Minute Waltz before I took to the stage for one quick tune as the last player while our guest artist Harry Hussey got seated and strapped in ready for his second half. Harry's second spot followed the same theme as the first half. The requests that came his way and the tunes he played were Old Comrades, The Whistler And His Dog, Whistling Rufus, Put Another Nickel In, Opus One, Days Of Wine And Roses, Tico Tico, Bali High, Here's That Rainy Day, Danny Boy, Some Enchanted Evening, When I Take My Sugar To Tea, Aint Misbeahaving, My Very Good Friend The Milkman, Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter, When I'm Sixty Four, O' Sole Mio, Lady Be Good, You Are My Sunshine, Laura, American Patrol, Chatannooga Choo Choo, Carte Postale, and finally at 11.25pm Harry started his final piece, Bourbon Street Parade. We had enjoyed a wonderful night of entertainment from Harry and our own local players. I am sure that most people will be looking forward to Harry's return to Leyland Accordion Club in something like 12 to 24 months time. The 11.30pm finish time was 30 minutes after our normal time because we had not only our guest artist but 11 other acts to fit in as well. In future I will have to see how many acts we have at the club and decide a limit of 1 or 2 tunes per person or a time limit depending on how many people we have to fit in. Stockport run a similar system of 1 or 2 tunes maximum on guest artist nights when they have a number of players to get through and it seems to work well. It's good that we have so many players wanting to play but it's not fair on the later players who are told to only play one tune because of time limits when players who go on at the beginning of the night play 4 tunes or a few medleys. In future I'll check how many players we have and set a time or tune limit at the start of the night to ensure that everyone gets a fair go. David Batty
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Firewalking
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This WednesdayOnce again we have another of our local players concerts, which offers a chance for all of our players to take to the stage for nine or ten minutes to show us what they can do. I particularly like the local players nights because we get a wide variety of styles and music being played. This makes it a good variety night for the audience and it gives us club players the chance to star for 8 or 10 minutes in a non threatening environment. If you haven't taken to the stage before at Leyland then please bring your accordion along and give us at least one or two tunes. William Langton and Andrew Figg told me that they are going to be playing on Wednesday, I am also expecting Derek and Rocky Howard to be travelling over from Yorkshire to play for us and one of our members who has been ill for the last year is hoping to make a return to the club on Wednesday. It will be a good night as it always is. Please tell your friends about it and bring them down for a night out. All that entertainment, a raffle, good company, and tea/coffee at 20p a cup, you just can't go wrong. Doors open at 7.30pm so make sure you turn up early for a good seat. If you have accordions for sale then please bring them along and place them on the stage with a for sale sign and your own name on them so people can see them and try them in the break. I will see you there - David Batty
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Robert ThornYou may remember a young lad, Robert Thorn who played on Tom Alexander's accordion at one of our concerts at The Highfield. I had to stand behind him and hold the straps because they were too big to fit on his body. Robert then went on to buy that Hohner Gola from Tom and has won many competitions since. This month's news is that Robert has released his debut CD titled Reel Em In. |
ArtsLiveTheArtsLive newsletter which goes out to clubs, libraries and various information points in the Preston, Leyland Chorley area, has now been relesed with a half to three quarters of a page feature on Leyland Accordion Club in it. It's quite a good article, they did get my name wrong in the diary listings and also they made up their own caption for the photograph, but otherwise it's an excellent article. If you do see it in your local library, Tourist Information Office or council run building then please collect a few copies and distribute them to people you think might be interested in the club. I am going to take out an advert in future issues of this publication which is expected to have a print run of around 10,000 per quarter, that should help us get knowledge of the clubs existence out to those who need us.
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Guest Artist BookedI have booked Julie Best as our guest artist on the 18th of May. Julie last played for us in March 2003 which will make it two years and two months since she was last at Leyland although it only seems like yesterday that she was here. I know there are a lot of people looking forward to her return and I know that they will not be disappointed.
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Looking Back In Time
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Only JokingAn accordionist dies and goes to Heaven and Saint Peter tells him he's really going to enjoy the afterlife, "but there is good news and bad news."Give me the good news first," says the musician. "Well," says Saint Peter, "you get to play in the finest clubs, you get free food and drinks, you can take long breaks whenever you like, everybody applauds and appreciates your music, you get paid really well, you have the best sidemen in the history of music, and you get your pick of recording contracts." "Wow, that sounds great," says the accordionist, "What could the bad news possibly be?" "Well," says Saint Peter, " GOD has this GIRLFRIEND and she thinks she can SING!"How do you improve the aerodynamics of an accordionists car? |
Our WebsiteOur internet website has had 79033 vistors as at 17th of April 2005, that's 1457 visitors to the main page of our website since last month. This is a 27% increase in visitors to our website in one month. I also told you in the last issue of this newsletter that our radio station had 950 listener hours that month, well this month we have had 1240 listener hours on the station which is an increase of around 30% over last month. An increase in visitor numbers to the website of 27%, and listener hours to the radio station of 30% is a nice increase in one month. I hope we keep these figures up, I have sown a few seeds such as the artslive newsletter writeup on the club which is being distributed at the moment and which will hopefully keep our visitor numbers rising. On our website there is a noticeboard for people to buy and sell accordions, ask for help or post some other accordion related advert. This noticeboard has had 52 adverts since the 1st of January so you can see that it's well used. I have added a new feature to the www.accordionfestival.co.uk site, each accordion festival listed has a countdown number on it in blue, this is a number that counts down to the number of days left before that festival is held. I have done this so that people attending festivals (or wanting to) can see how many days they have left to save the money to afford to go to the festival, and for those who are attending, the number of days left to practice their accordion prior to being at the festival or competition. I think this feature is very useful as it stops dates from creeping up on you. At the moment (Sunday 17th April) there are 5 days to go to Scarborough festival, 26 days to Blackpool Festival, 178 days to Bridlington, 207 days to Caister and 306 to Eastborne Accordion Festival. If your thinking of attending a festival then just visit www.accordionfestival.co.uk for dates, venue, organisers name, contact phone number, a short description of what to expect and any artists if known and the countdown timer to each festival. |
Wyre International Accordion FestivalOn Saturday the 26th of March, the Wyre International Accordion Festival was held from 9am to 7.30pm. There were competitions throughout the day and a trade show in the foyer. I was asked to be a Stage Manager for the day which basically meant looking after one of the rooms where the competitions were being held. This meant I had to ensure that the adjudicators had the correct paperwork, that the competitors were located in time for their spot, that people couldn't get in or out during a competitors performance and generally making sure that the room ran smoothly. Even being the shy quiet person I am, I still took on this role. I had to hand over my post at 4pm though because I was due to perform in the Entertainment section at 4.30pm. This involved putting on a 15 minute show for the adjudicators, I came second so I might have to do some work to make sure I come first next year. At the end of the evening I played a ten minute spot in the show prior to the awards being announced. The hall had filled by now because all of the competitions were over and people were congregating in the main hall for the announcement of the awards. After playing in the evening concert at Fleetwood I was asked if I would play in the Friday night concert at the NAO Finals at Scarborough. I thought "why should only Lancashire people have to listen to me" so I decided to agree to inflict myself on the people who travel to Scarborough for the NAO National Finals. I'll let you know how it goes. |
Phil Kelsall Gala ConcertDon't forget that you can still get tickets for the Ken Astin and Phil Kelsall concert at the Tower Ballroom on Sunday 8th May. Tickets for the Sunday night Gala are available from the Blackpool Tower Booking Office, priced from £9 to £12.50 depending where you want to sit. To book Tel: 01253 292029 or E-mail: AlisonPilling@leisure-parcs.co.uk |
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