Orble - Andy Roberts

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Spotlight Posts

[ more ]

This is a new Andy Roberts song called Yellow Boat which was inspired by a walk along the river at Richmond in the spring. The picture of the boat is prettier than the yellow boat itself and it was the picture which inspired the song, if I had a yellow boat I'd sail it to St Martins.
So I played it at Havering Folk Club at the first opportunity and then once again the next week. Here's the video recorded by Linda Hartley for me

Andy Roberts Yellow Boat at Havering Folk Club

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Andy Roberts - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Havering Folk Club

January 12th 2009 14:30

Last year I discovered Havering Folk Club in Romford and quickly became a regular attender and performer there. It's a friendly club with a solid core of people who don;t make a big fuss about any one particular style of music, contemporary or traditional, nor get over competitive about different people's musical talents and abilities.

For me it's great because being a weekly club with ordinary singers nights three times a month, this provides a challenge to me to keep coming up with performable versions of a growing number of songs, both Andy Roberts songs and all sorts of covers.

On top of this, I've also been booked to feature in a member's guest night which will take place on April 1st 2009 at Havering Folk club so I've been thinking recently about how I'm going to put together a set list in two halves.

At present my plan is to dedicate the first set to a rendition of a series of my own songs which were al written at the same time during a short solo trip to Spain in 2003, ending with Gernika. The second set will then be for a few of the less usual covers, such as the Roy Harper's The Same Old Rock , some sing a long folk songs, maybe a couple of requests and ending traditionally with Goodnight Irene.

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Andy Roberts - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Andy Roberts Music

July 23rd 2008 13:33

Andy Roberts Music

I thought I'd use this new blog space to write about Andy Roberts Music which is something I've been involved in for decades altogether. The name Andy Roberts is not unique of course, and there are literally hundreds of Andy Robertses around the world most of whom but not all will be called Andrew. Of these, there are only a few who are musicians and could be counted within the topic of Andy Roberts Music.

Andy Roberts as a young man

It all started at around the age of fourteen when Andy Roberts picked up a cheap tatra spanish guitar that was lying around and started to learn a few chords. Within a few days he had learned enough to play some very simple songs and within a week or so was beginning to enjoy playing music regularly. Having been a singer ever since a child it was only a matter of time before Andy Roberts started to play his own type of music, which at that time consisted of Loudon Wainwright and Roy Harper songs. The first notable public performance by Andy was in Truro Town Hall when Ralph McTell failed to turn up.

Andy Roberts own music

Within the emerging genre of singer somgwriting, Andy Roberts began to pen some of his own lyrics in a haphazard sort of way, coming uo with some original tunes amongst experiments with various different musical styles. "Hold on below" was one of those early songs that stayed with him, while Puddles and The show carries on were favourites at the time with audiences in Cornwall's many acoustic folk clubs during the 1970s

Andy Roberts in Paris

He had to do it. Following in the footsteps of a previous generation of folk singers who had started out busking, Andy headed off for a big city. Amsterdam was the original destination, but a problem with the police attitude there sent him quickly on to Paris where he worked as an itenerent musician singing in the metro and outside cinema queues on the Champs Elysees. The music adapted according to what worked best and could stand being repeated, and familiar tunes were better appreciated so the original Andy Roberts songs got less of an airing. That didn't mean he stopped songwriting though, and a number of more bluesy style songs were created during that period.

Andy Roberts on the Internet

Roll forward a few decades and suddenly we have the appearance of Andy Roberts music on the internet. This started with some very low quality "wav" files just before the mp3 format was invented, and continues now with a number of later songs published online for free download via Andy Roberts Music on his blog and also some older tunes which were priginally recoded in the 1980s and are now on the Andy Roberts Label on last.fm

Andy Roberts

Yellow Boat

Havering Folk Club

Andy Roberts Music

Andy Roberts's Blogs