“And after winter folweth grene May”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde

“The month of May has come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit”
— Thomas Malory

“Forgive me if, in friendship’s way,
I offer thee a wreath of May…
Nourished by the dews of heaven…”
– John Clare

“As full of spirit as the month of May”
— William Shakespeare

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope”
— Emily Brontë

“Among the changing months, May stands confest the sweetest, and in fairest colours dressed”
— James Thomson

“I thought that spring must last forevermore; for I was young and loved, and it was May”
— Vera Brittain

“So closely, in their profusion, do they crowd together that lovers would find it as hard to count the kisses exchanged in an hour as to count the flowers in a meadow in May”
— Marcel Proust

“At last came the golden month of the wild folk — honey-sweet May, when the birds come back, and the flowers come out, and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year”
— Samuel Scoville Jr

“May bursts, the rainbow of the months, sent as a sign — a promise of fruition”
– The National Magazine, May 1899

“But he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may,
Because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away”
― WB Yeats

“Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!”
– Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Most people liked it best in the early spring, when the woods down to the river seemed to shift almost before one’s eyes from snowdrop white to daffodil yellow to the shimmer of bluebells … I shall always remember it with the profoundest gratitude, though, as it was that May, that last May, in the last of my old summers”
― Jan Morris, Conundrum

“And a bird overhead sang Follow,
And a bird to the right sang Here;
And the arch of the leaves was hollow,
And the meaning of May was clear”
― Algernon Charles Swinburne

Blues and beyond with Phil Beer

PHIL Beer, multi-instrumentalist and best known as half of the hugely popular folk duo Show of Hands, is currently pursuing his own musical thing, with gigs in the south and west between now and late October.

Phil is in our region on Friday 22nd May at Bridgwater Arts Centre, Saturday 23rd May, at Sixpenny Handley village hall, from 7th to 9th August at Dartmoor Folk Festival, Friday 25th September at Ilminster Arts Centre and Wednesday 21st October at Bristol Beacon.

The world-renowned instrumentalist shares the roots of his musical life in the show, Phil Beer Trio, Blues and Beyond.

Supported by his long-time collaborator Miranda Sykes on double bass and bass guitar and Sian Monaghan on percussion, he will take the audience through the music of Blind Willie Johnson, The Rev Gary Davis, Davy Graham and John Mayall.

Phil will introduce the music of the Great British Blues interpreters and pioneers, while giving it that inimitable Phil Beer ‘twist’. Following the success of his 2020 album The Blues Hour, the Blues and Beyond tour brings three great musicians at the top of their game, combining effortlessly to create an evening of songs and anecdotes from an extraordinary life in music, this time from the ‘bluesy side of the street.