LGBT History Month Concert

LGBT HIstory Month finishes today and our choir, Sing with Pride, gave a concert which showcased a couple of songs by Labi Siffre. Why Labi Siffre? Well, we had received one of the small bursaries from Nofolk County Council which they had made available so that the achievements of LGBT role models could be celebrated and as Labi Siffre is a musician who has close ties to LGBT History Month we felt he was the ideal person to celebrate.

This pic is of 'Mary's Magical Musical Thing' (she's our Musical Director and this is the Thing she blows into to give us our starting notes) and of some of the lyrics from (Something Inside) So Strong, an anti-apartheid anthem that has been covered by artists as diverse as Kenny Rogers, the Flying Pickets and Marcia Griffiths. Because it's a song against oppression and bigotry it's also a favourite of the London Gay Men's Chorus. His song 'It Must be Love' provided a top ten hit for Madness twice! These were the songs of his that we performed this evening.

Labi Siffre was born in London in 1945, started recording in 1970 and released eleven albums. He was one of the first people in the UK to enter into a civil partnership in December 1995 with Peter Lloyd who he met in 1964.

It was another lovely evening at Jurnetts Bar, and we had guest appearances from Caspar playing his uke and singing some gay-themed calypso songs, Mary Lovett our Musical Director and her friend Andy Moore singing and playing guitar and I think the choir sang more songs than we've done before in one single gig:

- We Who Believe in Freedom
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- All Shall be Well
- Something Inside so Strong
- Tula Mama
- Grandma Said *
- Garai Pano
- It Must be Love
- Only You
- Haul Away Joe - a somewhat crazy sea shanty that we've only just learned and seemed to take on a life of it's own ....

Photo-wise, it was a bit of a bad hair day for me. Don't quite know why but I only took a handful of pics. Mainly of individuals performing.

Oh, the raffle raised a fair sum for choir funds and I won a tenner in a game called heads and tails!

No more rehearsals now until the end of March, when we start preparing for Norwich Pride on 28 July. It will whizz by.

*Grandma Said is a song that came out of the 'Out 140 Project' where people were invited to tell their coming out stories in 140 characters or less. Here's the words of 'Grandma Said':

Grandma asked mum: has she got a boyfriend?
Mum said I was gay.
Grandma said: has she got a girlfriend then?