Bright Morning Star - recordings?

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Arkie
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 10:05 PM

Ken Whiteley does a very nice version. Also Kathy Mattea and Ralph Stanley have recorded it.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: jaze
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 11:33 AM

I believe Emmylou Harris recorded this on "Angel Band"

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: kendall
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 08:31 AM

I have it by Lou and Sally Killen on Front Hall records.They learned it from Swan Arcade.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Morris-ey
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 06:06 AM

Oysterband has done it.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: johnross
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 01:33 PM

Robin Christenson would go out of his way to find "forgotten" songs to sing at Fox Hollow every year, where he would appear with his wife Ellen, Ellen's sister Irene (the Kossoy Sisters) and Irene's husband Tony Saletan. He found "Bright Morning Stars" in Ruth Crawford Seeger's book, "American Folksongs for Christmas," which contained songs she had found in the Library of Congress collections.

The same book has been the source of several LP collections. The earliest was on Folkways (FC 7553), with songs, including BMS, performed by Peggy, Barbara and Penny Seeger, along with some children.

Separately, the song was still sung in Kentucky (where the version in LoC presumably had been collected), and several traditional singers were performing it. I believe that was the channel through which Ralph Stanley found it.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Scoville
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 03:42 PM

the Freight Hoppers did a good a cappella version. I forget which album it was on--might have been Where'd You Come From, Where'd You Go?.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 03:32 PM

The Putney School and Atlantic Union versions are both a 'tad' slow for my taste...and the Atlantic Union version seems kinda 'tweaked' in rhythm...perhaps to personalize it. de gustibus non disputandum, I guess.

(and I still prefer the simpler Arkansas version on the National Geographic recording, though almost everyone is doing the basic tune on these 2 latest versions)

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: MG John
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 01:05 PM

Whoops, A spelling mistake on my last comment.J.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

You can find a version of it here
http://www.atlanticunion.net/aunioncd.html

by Newfoundland folk trio Atlantic Union

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: MG John
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 04:42 AM

To add to Stewie's comments, The sampler he mentions was titled "The Folk Trailer" (Trailer LER 2019 Sterio) John.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 04:32 AM

Sydney's Roaring Forties recorded it on their second CD, unfortunately it is one of the tracks without MP3

The Forties include Mudcatter Jack Halyard (John Warner)

sandra

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,Mike Grenville
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 04:13 AM

There is a very nice version you can hear online here:

http://www.putneyschool.org/music/sing/mp3/track7.mp3

Mike

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 03:44 AM

The Young Tradition recording of Bright Morning Star is included on the Peter Bellamy retrospective Wake The Vaulted Echoes Free Reed FRTCD 14.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 11:33 PM

I have an LP by a group of women called the Pennywhistlers. I've also heard Sally Rogers sing it in a concert, although I don't know if she recorded it.

The two tunes were entirely different.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 07:20 PM

Bill, that's the recording I was referring to in my post of 12 Mar 05 - 02:35 PM.

The Simmons Family was Tommy and Jean Simmons and young daughter Pam. A few years later they also sang it on a Simmons Family album, Neighbors. I am listening to that as I type this.

Tom still lives near here, but does not perform so far as I know.

Jean (now Jennings) and Pam Kirby are part of the local group Leatherwoods, and a first rate bunch it is, too.

The song is still performed locally, by the Leatherwoods and a few other performers as well.

I'll alert Arkie to this thread, he might be able to shed some light on it. You'll find him on that National Geographic album, too.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 06:14 PM

The first time I heard it was a 1972 LP produced by the National Geographic Society in the 'Sounds of the World' series called "Music of the Ozarks"...annotated by Jimmy Driftwood.

side 2 begins with "Bright Morning Stars" which is sung by 3 residents of Mountain View, Arkansas....learned, it says from an old man named Albert Sands, who couldn't carry a tune, but got 'close enough'. Albert said "old timers" used to sing it when HE was boy.
I actually prefer this tune, which is simpler and more conducive to harmonies than the nice, but kinda 'wavy-warbly' tune that you ususally hear.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Cats
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 09:55 AM

Bright Morning Star is of shaker origin. I found a copy of it when researching shaker hymns. Mother Ann was known as the Bright Morning Star and the version I have has 'Gone to heaven shaking' in it. BMS is also, of course, the sun.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: cptsnapper
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 09:13 PM

Judy Collins recorded it on her " Running For My Life " album.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 06:42 PM

Uh, greg stephens, who is THIS Greg Stephens you are talking about, and what makes him a legend?   :-)

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: greg stephens
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 06:15 PM

The best recording I know is the Boat Band's( on "Back up and Push", Harbourtown records). the vocals being Kate Barfield and Chrissie Gladwin. The tasteful guitar accompaniment is by the legendary Greg Stephens.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 05:29 PM

A Young Tradition recording appeared on a Leader/Trailer sampler in 1970 and, according to this page - CLICK - remains the sole YT track as yet unreissued on CD. It was a great favourite at the Top End Folk Club here in Darwin in the early 1970s and that was our source. I still associate the song with Bellamy's distinctive vocal.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 03:56 PM

You'll note that there are lyrics in the Digital Tradition and in this thread, so I dropped the "lyr req:" from the title of this thread and added "recordings," since it seems to be asking for information on recordings. There is no entry on this song in the Traditional Ballad Index, and only a one-line entry at folktrax.org - which indicates that the song is not found in most of the major song-collector songbooks. It is in Rise Up Singing and in the blue Collected Reprints from Sing Out! - but those are from newer sources. Here is the comment from Collected Reprints on the song:

"Bright Morning Stars," an old hymn, is closely associated with Fiddler Beer's Fox Hollow Festival. Ellen and Robin Christenson's and Irene and Tony Saletan's beautiful singing of the song had hundreds of others wanting to learn it.
The version [in Collected Reprints] is from the singing of Irene and Tony Saletan and appears in Grass Roots Harmony (Oak, 1968), edited by Ethel Raim and Josh Dunson. The Saletans' version is scheduled to appear on a long "forthcoming" record on Folk-Legacy. The Pennywhistlers -- A Cool Day and Crooked Corn (Nonesuch/Explorer H-72024). Peggy Seeger sings a fine solo version on American Folk Songs for Christmas (Folkways FC 7053).

I'm not going to go into detail because the DT and the other thread have lyrics, but the lyrics in Collected Reprints are:

Bright mornin' stars are ris-in' (3x)
Day is a-breakin' in my soul.

Oh, where are our dear fathers...

Some have gone to heaven shouting...

Some are down in the valley praying...

(repeat first verse)

So, anyhow, I'm still left wondering how old this song is, and where it comes from. Can somebody enlighten us?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Bright Morning Star - recordings?
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 02:35 PM

Check for

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Ralph Stanley & Kathy Mattea

Incredible String Band

All good versions.

I can certainly vouch for the two Simmons Family recordings, but I don't think you are likely to have any luck finding them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bright Morning Star
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 01:06 PM

From Folk Music Index to Recordings:

Bright Morning Star - Dorsey, Court/Seabrook Protesters/Traditional

Sm - Bright Morning Stars (Are Rising)
Winds of the People, Sing Out, Sof (1982), p 68
Bright Morning Star. Arisin', Rainbow Snake RSR 004, LP (1981/?), cut#B.06
Saletan, Tony and Irene. Cooney, Michael (ed.) / How Can We Keep From Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1974), p 3
Simmons Family. Simmons, Tommy & Jean / Simmons Family Songbook, Simmons, Sof (1974), p 5
Bright Morning Stars (Are Rising)

Mf - Bright Morning Star
Blood, Peter; and Annie Patterson (eds.) / Rise Up Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1989/1992), p143
County Down. Living in the Country, Fretless FR 165, LP (1983), cut#B.06
Diller, Dwight. New Plowed Ground, Diller, CD (1998), cut# 1
Freight Hoppers. Where'd You Come From, Where'd You Go?, Rounder 0403, CD (1996), cut#16
Harris, Emmylou. Angel Band, Warner Bros 22585, Cas (1987), cut#A.05
Pennywhistlers. Cool Day and Crooked Corn, Nonesuch H-72024, LP (197?), cut#B.03
Saletan, Tony and Irene. Tony and Irene Saletan, Folk Legacy FSI-037, LP (1970), cut#B.01
Saletan, Tony and Irene. Raim, Ethel and Josh Duncan (eds.) / Grass Roots Harmony, Oak, Sof (1968), p.70
Seeger Family. American Folk Songs for Christmas, Rounder 0268/0269, LP (1989), cut# 5
Simmons, Jean and Tommy. Music of the Ozarks, National Geographic Soc. 0703, LP (1972), cut# 10
Traum, Happy. Bright Morning Star, Greenhays GR 703, LP (1980), cut#B.06
Tucker, George. George Tucker, Rounder 0064, LP (1976/?reis), cut# 20

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bright Morning Star
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 01:00 PM

Try Dwight Diller's version, you can check out which CD it's on by going to his website.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bright Morning Star
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 01:00 PM

Is it included here (Bright Morning Star - Search Results at CD Universe)?

Subject: Lyr Req: Bright Morning Star
From: Sharon Steinberg
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 12:45 PM

Once upon a time, I heard a beautiful rendition of Bright Morning Star, but I don't remember who sang it -- I'd like to compile a list of possibles -- has anyone heard this song and by whom? Thanks much -- Peace -- Sharon