January13th 2005 Johnny Dillon

  It's always a pleasure to welcome new entertainers to our club and tonight was no exception.

Despite making frequent appearances in our audience during the past couple of years, Johnny Dillon was here for the first time on stage.

Johnny came to South Derbyshire two years ago from the Middlesborough area of Yorkshire . Coming from a musical family he joined his first group as singer/ guitarist at school when only nine years old.

During and after school years he has played in bands and duos etc.sometimes as bass, rhythm and lead guitarist and even as a drummer. He turned full - time professional over ten years ago as part of a duo but on moving to the local village of Newhall has been solo for the last two years.

He has performed all genres of music, but is more involved in fifties and sixties music on a regular basis.

Fulfilling his desire to entertain in Country music clubs, Johnny has now developed a substantial and varied programme of this music which kept our audience dancing, listening and singing all evening.

 Smartly dressed, he started with the ever popular ' Little Ole Wine Drinker Me' and continued with lots of well - loved standards from the catalogues of Mssrs. Williams, Strait, Haggard and Jackson especially.

 However there were also songs not generally heard in our club / ' All of Me' as done by Willy Nelson, Albert Hammond's ' It Never Rains in Southern California', Brondon Croker's ( of the  Notting Hillbillies) ' That's Where I Belong', ' The Way to Amarillo' which was covered by Tony Christie and Marty Robbins, and Jack Greene / Englebert's ' There Goes My Everything'.

By request, Johnny included a few sixties numbers towards the end, and concluded with an excellent rendition of Micky Newbury's ' American Trilogy'.

After such an enjoyable performance, I am sure we will see more of Johnny Dillon at our club.

                   Cyril Insley