October 22nd 2009. JIM RYDER
One of the most popular country artistes with our members was tonight's entertainer, but differently he was performing solo, and gave us another superb show in his own inimitable style.
Full of classic, popular and relatively unknown songs and, of course, the requisite risque, humorous ditty, Jim's concert once again brought the ovation he so richly deserved.
Numbers included Leroy Parnell's, On The Road, Toby Keith's, Cabo San Lucas, Shel Silverstein's, Still Gonna Die, David Allan Coe's, Love Is A Never Ending War, John Denver's, Granma's Feather Bed, Tennessee Ernie Ford's, Sixteen Tons, Johnny Cash's, Ring Of Fire, Wendel Adkins', excellent but irreverent, Rodeo Cowboys, The Rolling Stones', It's All Over Now, The Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley country hit, In The Ghetto and the wonderful Frankie Laine tribute song to Gene Autry's Steed, Champion The Wonder Horse.
With excellent shows like this, Jim will always remain a favourite of ours.
Cyril Insley
March 5th 2009... JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
Excellent vocals and superb guitar playing were the order of the evening as Jim and Adam thrilled us again with their performance.
Starting with the popular Merle Haggard song, Okie From Muskogee, they continued with two much lesser known numbers, Johnny Russell's, How Deep In Love Am I, and Shel Silverstein's, Elvis Has Left The Building, soon after came an excellent version of the Rolling Stones, The Next Time and Kenny Rogers, The Gambler.
Jim always likes to include tongue in cheek ditties in his concerts and tonight's example was, The Big One, returning to the good Old favourites he delivered, Hugh Moffatt's, Old Flames, Dave Dudley's, Six Days On The Road, Willie Nelson's, Seven Spanish Angels and to end a great evenings entertainment, George Strait's, The Cowboy Rides Away.
Cyril Insley
September 4th .2008 JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
Regular entertainers at our club, Jim and Adam once more gave us an evening of great music, plenty to keep both dancers and listeners in an enjoyable mood all night.
Numbers included Creedance Clearwater's, Proud Mary, Bobby Bare's, Tequila Sheila, The Eagles, Take It Easy, Steve Earle's, Devil's Right Hand, Ed Bruce's, Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, Dave Dudley's, Six Days On The Road, Tex Ritter's, High Noon, and a couple from the Highwaymen, Union Mare and Confederate Grey, and a song not heard often in our club, Born and Raised In Black and White.
Numbers new to me included, Dave Sherriff's, The Black Magic Gun, Confederate Railroad's, She Took It Like A Man, one of unknown origin, Whatever Happened To My Heroes, and Brooks and Dunn's, South Of Santa Fe.
Excellent vocals and instrumentation were evident with the delivery of each number and well appreciated by our members, judging by their applause, and Jim and Adam were well worthy if it.
January 3rd 2008... JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
To welcome in the New Year, our first entertainers were the North Wales based duo of father and son Jim and Adam Ryder. Jim was expecting to work solo this year but Adam decided to work with dad as well as doing band work.
As usual they provided superb vocals and excellent instrumentation for songs old and new. Lots of popular country numbers included Willie Nelson's, Me and Paul, Merle Haggard's, Today I Started Loving You Again, The Eagles', Peaceful, Easy Feeling, Boxcar Willie's, I Love The Sound Of A Whistle, Roy Acuff's, Wabash Cannonball, Don Williams', Till The Rivers All Run Dry and Hoyt Axton's, Evangelina.
Amongst other songs were a couple from Raymond Froggatt's catalogue and always received well here, Somewhere Under The Sun and Wings On My Heels.
All of which contributed to a great start for the New Year.
March 1st 2007 JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
Tonight was Jim's and Adam's last scheduled concert here as a Duo as son Adam is to form his own band next year, and what an outstanding show they gave us. As always it was full of super singing and masterful musicianship, all of which was most appreciatively received by our members.
The show was a good variety of Country Music, New country songs included Joe Diffie's, Honkytonk Attitude, John Michael Montgomery's, (Sold), Grundy County Auction, and the Willie / Toby Keith smash, Beer For My Horses. Older Country numbers featured, Don Williams, Amanda, Willie and Waylon's, Good Hearted Woman, Mel McDaniels, Louisiana Saturday Night, Johnny Paycheck's, Take This Job And Shove It and the Stan Jones Classic, Ghost Riders In The Sky.
Jim added a bit of spice to the show with one of his many risqu'e ditties, this time one about, ' My Life Size,Wife Size, Full Grown, Blow Up, Plastic Girl ' (Named Wendy).
In addition we had a Rock ' N ' Roll medley of Johnny B Goode and Blue Suede Shoes which received rapturous applause.
Once again we had a superb show and on behalf of the Northern Renegades members I would like to wish both Jim and Adam success in their future ventures.
October 12th 2006 JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
Another superb show from this father and son duo ensured our members left the club in high spirits. It was such a pleasure to be treated to loads of different songs tonight. Indeed, they sang seventeen numbers not included in their previous appearance earlier this year.
Starting with Charlie Daniels 1975 hit, Billy The Kid, they continued with Johnny Horton's 1960 smash, North To Alaska, followed by a song new to me, Kenny Price's, Let's Truck Together, a charter from 1974 and the Shel Silverstein Classic, The Three Legged Man.
Other material not heard on the circuit nowadays included Mo Bandy's, She's Not Really Cheatin' ( she's just gettin' even), David Allan Coe's, The Ride, a couple of Don Williams' songs, It Only Rains On Me and Till The Rivers All Run Dry.
However the big surprise of the evening was the inclusion of two numbers from Joe Brown's (and the Bruvvers) latest cd, Down To Earth ie. Well, Well, Well and The Gallows Pole, whose interpretation and arrangment by Jim and Adam was excellent.
As usual the dancers were kept busy, Line,Partner and Rock 'n' Roll.
This act is one of the most popular to visit our club and I for one cannot see too much of them.
March 9th 2006 JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
Another good crowd was in attendance for tonight's concert which was a testament to our members fondness for this duo.
As usual Jim delivered the vocals, played rhythm guitar, while Adam supported his Dad with harmony vocals and superb lead guitar work.
Catering for both Line and Partner dancing, and Listeners alike, they received enthusiastic applause from the audience all evening for each song presented. The most popular were, Ladies Love Outlaws, Fields of Athenrye, Don't Close Your Eyes, The Gambler, Blue Wing, Charlie, Wings On My Heels, and Good Hearted Woman.
As is his custom, Jim told a few amusing stories and sang a couple of humorous risqué ditties. Together with their excellent vocals and musicianship the duo gave us another night to savour.
Cyril Insley
August 25th 2005
JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
A longtime stalwart of the British Country Music scene, Jim Ryder, with his talented son Adam James provided this evening's entertainment.
Their programme was a good mix of songs and tunes for dancing or listening and singing along to. The dancers not only filled the floor to the more recent numbers like Tracy Byrd's ' The Truth About Men', Lee Roy Parnell's ' Country Down To My Soul' and Joe Nicholl's ' Brokenheartsville' but also to Classic Country songs including Bobby Bare's ' Marie Laveau', Mel McDaniels ' Louisianna Saturday Night', Creedance Clearwater Revival's ' Bad Moon Rising' and Waylon's ' Dreaming My Dreams'.
It was also good to hear again Kris Kristofferson's ' The Taker', Johnny Horton's ' North To Alaska', Nat Stuckey's ' Whiskey Whiskey', Frankie Laine's ' Rawhide' and an excellent rapport with his audience, especially with his amusing quips and humorous anecdotes.
Old favouites like Billy Ray's ' Wher'm I Gonna Live', George Strait's ' The Cowboy Rides Away' and John Denver's ' Some Days Are Diamonds' went down very well but perhaps the best applause was saved for their superb version of Danny and the Juniors ' At The Hop'.
As expected Jim and Adam gave another super all round performance.
Cyril Insley
March 31st 2005 JIM RYDER and ADAM JAMES
A sizeable crowd gathered tonight knowing they would have an evening of splendid entertainment as Jim and his son Adam were our guests. Not only do we get excellent music and songs from two fine musicians but you get humorous anecdotes and a jocular rapport between artistes and audience.
A carefully chosen programme to keep dancers and listeners happy included Dick Fellar's ' Some Days Are Diamonds', Joe Diffie's ' Honky Tonk Attitude' Mick Hanley's ' Past The Point of Rescue' and Dave Dudley's ' Six Days on the Road'
Songs new to the club included Tracy Byrd's ' The Truth About Men', which incidentally was their first public airing of this song, Kenny Rogers' The Buckaroos' from his 1980 album ' Gideon' and the recently deceased Chris Le Doux's ' Hooked on an 8-Second Ride'.
Partner dancers were well catered for and filled the floor for Don Williams' 'Till the Rivers All Run Dry / You're My Best Friend' medley, Gary Morris's ' Wind Beneath My Wings' and Hal Ketchum's ' Old Soldiers'
When asked for a waltz, they responded immediately with Waylon's ' Dreaming My Dreams Of You'
Yet again we had an evening to savour.
Cyril Insley
September 30th 2004 Ryder and James
Tonight we were pleased to welcome father and son duo, Jim Ryder and Adam James, for their first visit to our club. Jim, originally from Birkenhead , but now resident in the Wrexham, North Wales area, has been involved in Country Music for twenty four years or more.
He performs the vocals and rhythm guitar while Adam harmonises and plays lead guitar.
Adam incidentally, has only been playing for five years and started to accompany his Dad after only six months learning.He has obviously a natural gift and flare for this, as he quickly developed into a virtuoso on this instrument.
Their programme has a nice mix of older and new Country songs, Comic Ditties and amusing anecdotes from Jim, who came over as a ' Raconteur Extraordinaire'.
The Dancers were kept active all evening even though several songs were not familiar to them: eg. Johnny Russell's ' How Deep In Love Am I', The Pirates of the Mississippi's ' Till I'm Holding You In My Arms Again ', Gary Allan's ' Don't Look Away' and John Fogerty's ' Walking In A Hurricane'.
Two numbers especially well received were two classics from the Rock 'n' Roll era - Danny and the Juniors ' At The Hop' and The Shadows ' Apache ' which was Adam's Solo spot.
My favourite song of the evening was the Pete Rowan song 'Land of the Navaho', a beautiful, haunting melody.
After a performance like this, no doubt Jim and Adam will be invited back to our club.
Cyril Insley
