The 2025/26 Season is our 32nd
at Chaucer's Pub at 122 Carling Street in downtown London. We thank Jerry
Pribil and his wonderful staff for their continuing support.
Seasons Past .... Who has played at the Cuckoo's Nest?
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A LITTLE HISTORY
The Cuckoo's Nest Folk Club was originally formed in 1973, along the lines
of British folk clubs. Its aim was always to bring top level folk music
performers to London, as well as to provide a focus and inspiration for folk
music enthusiasts. The club ran for ten years (1973-83), meeting weekly at
Luther House near the University of Western Ontario's east gates. Other
commitments on the part of the original organizers led the club gently into a
long hiatus.
In the summer of 1994, Alistair Brown (one
of the original founders) and a stellar group of enthusiasts (John Simmons,
Mark Hartwell, Syd Monteith, Bruce Curtis, and Ian Davies) brought the club
back to life for a series of three "trial" concerts in the fall of
1994.
After the first tentative steps the club began to function quite smoothly.
The 1994/95 Revival Season left the club members very encouraged. This success
inspired the directors to promote an additional summer concert featuring the
Irish band Afterhours in August of 1995. This marked the beginning of a
new season of concerts in 1995/96 and we have carried on (in more ways than
one) ever since.
REMEMBERING
OUR FRIENDS – R.I.P.
OUR LONGTIME VOLUNTEER SYD MONTEITH PASSED AWAY SUDDENLY ON MARCH 16, 2022.
Syd was a truly sweet and big-hearted guy who
willingly would give the shirt off his back to anyone in need. He had a heart
of gold. He was unassuming and passionate. He was a dedicated volunteer at the
Goderich Celtic Roots Festival for many years, and for even longer one of the
stalwart volunteers for the Cuckoo's Nest Folk Club (since the club’s revival
in 1994). We will miss him. R.I.P. dear friend.
Vin Garbutt (Nov. 20, 1947 – June 6, 2017)
Vin played the Cuckoo’s Nest many times and
was a club favourite. He will be truly missed.
“All the very best, Vin!”
Tam Kearney of Friends
of Fiddler’s Green
(March 17, 1940 – March 6, 2013)
Tam Kearney, co-founder of Toronto’s influential and lamented folk club
Fiddler’s Green, irreverent on-stage mouthpiece of The Friends of Fiddler’s
Green and the man directly or indirectly responsible for so much of Toronto’s
burgeoning folk scene in the 1970s and 80s, died on March 6, 2013, from
complications of diabetes. He was a couple of weeks short of his 73rd birthday.
Tam was a big hearted, funny, politically incorrect, and often combative man
who as we — his Friends of Fiddler’s Green bandmates — often remarked, called a
spade “a fucking shovel,” Whether it was his incomprehensible Glasgow accent,
or just plain charm, he could get away with saying almost anything without
giving offense. Many a plain truth came from his lips, and people loved him for
that.
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