This one is my mother's favorite. I adore it too--what's not to like? The song features a banjo, that greatest of American instruments. It also has a complexity which many Christmas Carols lack.
The New Christy Minstrels spawned the likes of Barry McGuire* (Eve of Destruction), Gene Clark (The Byrds), Kim Carnes (Bette Davis Eyes), and the Kenny Rogers. The NCM belonged to that wonderful but brief period of American music between the death of Buddy Holly and the invasion of The Beatles.
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*His growling voice appears briefly at the 1 min 44 sec mark.
16 comments:
Originally posted here.
I'm not phoning it in this morning with reruns. Really.
I'm waiting for Lem to post his squirrel post.
Christmas favorites:
Chanticleer
Bob and Doug McKenzie
My friends who play the kora might take exception, but whatever, dude.
I know a woman named Eva. I like to think her last name is Destruction.
The great folk scare was hideous. You were alive, but you didn't have to suffer through it as other of us did. It was an abomination. Communists walked freely around the country.
Now they run it.
So fuck folk music.
I added a "folk music" and a "waterboarding Sixty Grit" tag.
Neither tag was new.
Thanks. I'd prefer waterboarding.
Thanks, Amartel!
Cue banjo player jokes.
How can you tell if there's a banjo player at your door?
They can't find the key, the knocking speeds up, and they don't know when to come in.
I know I am old when the New Christy Minstrels is one of the first groups I saw live on stage in 1961. University of Wisconsin, opening for Bob Newhart IIRC.
ST ... You knew I was gonna do this, right?
Hey, how about a little FoggyMountainBreakdown?
I like the Christmas Oratorio Er ist auf Erden kommen arm (He is on earth come poor)
because the alternated chorus lines rhyme in German
Er ist auf Erden kommen arm,
Dass er unser sich erbarm,
Und in dem Himmel mache reich,
Und seinen lieben Engeln gleich.
Text actually by Martin Luther.
He is come on the earth poor
that he on us have mercy
and in heaven make us rich
and his beloved angels like
No rhyme arm-erbarm reich-gleich in English but the German is cool, hidden in the alternated lines.
He is come on the earth poor
that he on us have mercy
and in heaven make us rich
and his beloved angels like
In that whole verse, only "poor" and "mercy" have no germanic cognates.
Kruger Brothers
And for Christmas
Mele Kalikimaka
The New Christy Minstrels did "Today." Here is their version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cELsUMcQdc
This still has power to fill me with sadness and pleasure. It was the song I sang every night to my daughter after her story and prayers, for the years of her girlhood. Time seals like amber around the memories as I recede into the future, and just the pastness of those days - certainly not their content - evokes sorrow. Grandchildren, perhaps great grandchildren, but I will never again have a little daughter to sing to as she slips into sleep.
That's beautiful, rh. I've been meaning to listen to the entire oratorio. Never have, but now's a good time :)
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