Continuing the Christmas theme, a recollection of the Christmas recordings of my childhood: just two, both on 78s. There’s the sentimental celebration of secular Christmas, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in a recording with Lionel Barrymore playing Ebenezer Scrooge. And a sentimental celebration of the religious holiday, Charles Tazewell’s The Littlest Angel, in a version read by Loretta Young. Both originally from radio performances.
On the music front, I have a ton of Christmas music on my iTunes (a surprising amount for someone whose celebrations of the holiday have been minimal for some years):
folk, shapenote, and early American music: the Chieftains, the McGarrigle Family, the Columbus Consort, the Boston Camerata (2 albums)
choral settings of (mostly) carols: Andrew Parrott/Taverner Consort (2 albums), the King’s Singers
varied traditions: Anonymous 4 (3 albums), Chanticleer (4 albums)
hard to classify: Inner Voices, the Roches, Patty Loveless
impossible to classify: Brave Combo’s “It’s Christmas, Man!” (polka, samba, cha cha, and more)
December 24, 2010 at 9:00 am |
I’m sure YOU know the difference, but to an outsider, at first glance there isn’t a whole lot of difference between “hard to classify” and “various traditions”
rather like those who have two filing drawers, labelled “assorted” and “miscellaneous”.
December 24, 2010 at 10:22 am |
A consequence of my posting in haste. Anonymous 4 and Chanticleer are primarily singers of “classical” music, though they branch out into other traditions. Inner Voices, the Roches, and Patty Loveless come from other traditions.
Originally, I was going to give an unorganized list, but then I thought some grouping might be a good thing.
December 24, 2010 at 2:14 pm |
Have you heard this version of Rudolph to the tune of Northfield yet?
http://www.afolksongaday.com/2010/12/22/rudolph-the-rednosed-reindeer/
December 24, 2010 at 3:10 pm |
Ah, the miracle of C.M. tunes!
Yes, I think it was Dean Allemang who first pointed this one out.
November 24, 2011 at 9:43 pm |
[…] year on Christmas Eve I posted about this music on this blog. Here’s an […]
December 4, 2012 at 5:43 pm |
[…] in my collection of Christmas music (much of which is decidedly odd). The 2010 bulletin is here, the 2011 one here. What’s new this year: the hyperkinetic Clubbing Christmas 2008, found by […]