Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording

Subject: Tune Req: Jon Johnson
From: GUEST,KeyWestMark
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:44 PM

Can anyone remmember Carl Sandburg doing Jon Johnson on WGN's midnight special new years eve radio show.. Any ideas on how to get a copy of Sandburg doing it. Seems like I remmember him singin "he is lumberjack by trade".

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:05 PM

Hi, Mark -
The only available Carl Sandburg recording is The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America, which doesn't have the song. I see in this thread (click) that I said in 2003 that I knew Sandburg had recorded it, but now I am advanced in age and don't remember how I knew that at the time.
I thought the song was printed in Sandburg's American Songbag, but I couldn't find it in the book.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: GUEST,Key West Mark
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:20 PM

Joe, Yep I checked out those sources too, so the mystery continues, but Joe I know what I heard, at least acouple of times, but as an old Lake Geneva, Wisc. veteran maybe it was one too many white outs, maybe the new years champagne or both. So, please somebody, help us out on this one.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: GUEST,30_button
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:29 PM

>Can anyone remmember Carl Sandburg doing Jon Johnson on WGN's midnight >special new years eve radio show.. Any ideas on how to get a copy of >Sandburg doing it. Seems like I remmember him singin "he is lumberjack >by trade".

It was on an LP we had when I was a kid. But I don't suppose I've heard it since 1964 or so.

Google says it's also on a 1972 album Flat Rock Ballads (Columbia AML 5339)

Here it is on ebay if you want to pay a lot:
http://cgi.ebay.com/CARL-SANDBURG-flat-rock-ballads-LP-59-M-6-eye-ML-5339_W0QQitemZ350117472170QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:42 PM

No "Yon Yonson" yet, but there's an interesting video of a Sandburg appearance on What's My Line on YouTube (click). Gee, Dorothy Kilgallen really looked hot in that blindfold...

There's a Sandburg discography here (click), and a page on Flat Rock Ballads here (click).

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 11 - 07:06 PM

It was frequently played on WFMT's Midnight Special. I too would like to find the recording. He did a great version of it, as I recall. Played on the air in the 1960's and/or early 1970's.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 11:33 AM

My mother used to sing it to my brother and I as a round:

"My name is Yim Yonson (Jim Johnson) I live in Wisconsin I work in the lumberyard there... The people I meet When I walk down the street, They say, 'Eh! What's-a your name?

My... name is Yim Yonson..."

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: GUEST,Peter Davis
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 09:06 PM

I have the Flat Rock Ballads album and have always loved every song.

Here is the link to Sandburg's singing of My Name is Yon Yonson:

http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/gifs/ZoForth/sandburg/07%20Carl%20Sandburg%2007%20-%20My%20Name%20Is%20Yon%20Yonson.mp3

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Jon Johnson - Sandburg Recording
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 07:46 PM

It's the "Flat Rock Ballads" album,
recorded when Carl Sandburg was eighty-two years old,
with his guitar in his living room

(he did that before Johnny Cash did it)


And what he sings -- rather softly, I must admit -- is:

My name is Yon Yonson
I come from Vis-consin
I vork in da lumber-woods dere ...

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