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21 Dec 25 - 06:50 AM (#4233284) Subject: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Dave the Gnome There were a couple of old thread on this but they both seemed to have issues so here is a new one :-) On a couple of threads recently folk artists singing Christmas songs have been mentioned. One was The holly and the ivy by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Bamd. Along those lines I would also nominate In the bleak midwinter by Steeleye Span While investigating I also found Silent Night by The Seekers, featuring the lovely voice of Judith Durham What are your favourites? |
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21 Dec 25 - 12:19 PM (#4233298) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Joe Offer I wonder if "Gaudete" was widely known before Steeleye Span resurrected it. I love that song, with all its parodies. Maddy Prior is the woman who sings the verses on that recording, and her voice is wonderful. |
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21 Dec 25 - 01:08 PM (#4233301) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST,gillymor I lump Christmas Carols and Winter songs together and here are some I posted in another thread. Unfortunately I didn't save the links- Now that Thanksgiving day has passed it's time to dust off and relearn some winter songs and Christmas melodies. One of my favorites was recorded by the great man, Arthel "Doc" Watson.- A Rovin' on a Winter's Night Another of my guitar heroes, Al Pettaway, cut more of a "New Agey" version with his partner Amy White, who adds an exquisite vocal.-A Rovin' on a Winter's Night by Al and Amy Gordon Lightfoot's Song for a Winter's Night hit home with me on a personal level, fortunately things worked out well. In a previous post I linked to Tony Rice's version with his typical Bluegrass instrumentation that also sleighs (ha ha!). Here with a young Gordon and another guitar hero, Red Shea, playing it live- Song For a Winter's Night Somebody put Robert Tannehill's poem Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa' to a Scottish fiddle tune and though the lyric celebrates the coming of Spring and young love, Billy Ross' arrangement makes me think of winter at it's deepest and darkest one moment and then Spring as it commences the next, which I guess is the point.- Gloomy Winter I like songs where the wealthy jackass doesn't get away with it and Cold and Raw is one of them. Sung here by the magnificent June Tabor with Nic Jones on guitar.-Cold and Raw - In the Bleak Midwinter is also a favorite as is The Cherry Tree Carol which I first heard off a Joan Baez LP as a kid. |
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21 Dec 25 - 01:33 PM (#4233305) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST,mg here is my solstice song. SOLSTICE BELLS Chorus: Ring the bell of loveliness ring the bells of sorrow Some were ringing yesterday and more will ring tomorrow When the days are cold and short and the nights are darkest When hopes are hanging by a thread and memories are starkest First a tinkle here and there and then a mighty chiming Till heard by people everywhere in perfect pitch and timing They ring from little churches and from every ship at sea And from the mighty mountaintops wherever folks were free From every home and nation the message they are bringing You thought that you could silence us but once again we’re ringing. In the days we were enslaved their music was forbidden Their brass and silver melted down but many had been hidden Under stones and inside walls where tyrannies abounded But mostly in those hearts who still remembered how they sounded A cost was paid to bring them back a cost that some paid dearly Some could see it not at all and some could see it clearly. But all can join in joyful hope and greet each other well And send their best good wishes with the ring of every bell That crops will grow that peace will hold that every child be healthy That all will prosper in this year the humble and the wealthy That weather will be clement and the ground will not be shaken That freedom will return to all from whom it has been taken |
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21 Dec 25 - 01:35 PM (#4233306) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Reinhard There are so many excellent christmas songs and albums - I learned on Friday that there is a World Cup of Christmas Folk on Live to Your Living Room’s Facebook page with 64 albums as contestants; now down to eight albums in the Quarter Finals. But when I checked the contestants I found to my dismay that I have only 47 of the 64 albums, so there may be some purchasing in the future. On the other hand, my favourite Christmas album ever, "Bah! Humbug" with Robin Laing's glorious "The Man That Slits the Turkeys Throats at Christmas", isn't among them at all. |
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21 Dec 25 - 02:24 PM (#4233307) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST,Lang Johnnie Mor Karine : https://youtu.be/Ow8mjyKYGwY?si=rJRHHdCjsz4gWrt7 |
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21 Dec 25 - 03:43 PM (#4233311) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST Christmas songs in Irish (Youtube channel) |
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21 Dec 25 - 04:45 PM (#4233313) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Tattie Bogle Yes, Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band - "Carols and Capers" - is superb, as is the "Bah Humbug" album with contributions of "alternative" seasonal songs from many different sources. Another favourite of mine is Bill Barclay's very alcoholic version of the 12 days of Christmas! Track list: Intro: The Bells, the Bells! (0.24) Eric Bogle: Santa Bloody Claus (4.02) Tom Lehrer: Christmas Carol (2.41) Cyril Tawney: There Are No Lights on Our Christmas Tree (4.47) Robin Laing: The Man That Slits the Turkeys Throats at Christmas (5.18) Tom Clelland: The Present (4.59) Bill Barclay: The Twelve Days of Christmas (Roud 68; G/D 3:637) (4.24) His Worship and The Pig: Mary Christmas (3.12) The McCalmans: God Bless the Birthday Boy (3.19) Enoch Kent: Christmas Comes But Once a Year (2.19) from: Revival in Britain Volume 1 (Folkways FW 8728, 1962) Loudon Wainwright III: Christmas Morning (3.37) Cyril Tawney: The Lone Shepherd (7.37) Greentrax Choir (Drinkers Drouth, Sangsters and The McCalmans): We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Roud 230) (3.03) Barbara Dickson did a very nice album simply called "Winter": here's the track list: 01. Winter's Come 02. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence 03. In the Bleak Midwinter 04. Creator of the Stars of Night 05. The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came 06. Of the Father's Love Begotten 07. The Silence of the Dawn 08. The January Man 09. O Come, O Come Emmanuel 10. My Song is Love Unknown 11. Winter Song |
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21 Dec 25 - 05:25 PM (#4233315) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: DaveRo One of Robb Johnson's series of songs about Mary, the unmarried mother from Feltham, and her feckless boyfriend Gary, is Father Christmas Down Hounslow High Street which starts: "It's brass-monkey weather, said Noddy to Big Ears..." |
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21 Dec 25 - 07:49 PM (#4233321) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GerryM Voices of Winter, https://annehills.com/product/voices-of-winter/ album by Anne Hills, Priscilla Herdman, and Cindy Mangsen. Track list: Wintergrace (Jean Ritchie, © Geordie Music, ASCAP) Snow in the Street (w: William Morris, m: Ralph Vaughn Williams) from the Oxford Book of Carols Raise the Dead of Wintertime (w&m Allan Rankin) Witch Hazel (Tom Gala, ©1992 Tom Gala Music) Serving Girl’s Holiday (traditional) Harerot Halalu (traditional) from the book Three Log Night, Jane Peppler ©1990 A’roving on a Winter’s Night (traditional) Joy Health Love and Peace (traditional) / The Wren (Jack Hardy, ©1984 John S. Hardy Music, ASCAP) Unto You This Night (Steve Gillette & Rex Benson, ©1992 Foreshadow Songs / Rex Benson Music, BMI) The Frozen Logger (James Stephens, © Folkways Music) Proper Cup of Coffee (traditional, new verses by Anne Hills & Cindy Mangsen, ©1996) Voices of Winter (Anne Hills, ©1996 Raven Heart Music, ASCAP) Red & Green (Maddy Prior, ©1993 Kempire Music) Hot Buttered Rum (Tommy Thompson, © Southern Melody Publishing, BMI) Mister Santa (Pat Ballard, ©1982 Edwin H. Morris & Co.) Chickadee (w: Stan Scott, m: Ray Andrews, ©1983 Stanley Scott, BMI) More Wood (Dillon Bustin, ©1983 Moonbow Music, BMI) Lo, How A Rose (traditional) I'd also give a shout out to John Prine, Christmas in Prison, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Ig33jctXs and Rodney Crowell / Mary Karr, Christmas in Vidor, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_xvjDljJ34 |
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21 Dec 25 - 09:10 PM (#4233325) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST,Steve Shaw For an amusing parody there's "Awayday," the Kipper Family's take on Gaudete. Hilarious! Cheers for mentioning Maddy singing The Holly and the Ivy, Dave, one of my very favourites (and which has a riff! ;-) ), but no-one here will ever hear my most treasured carol in the way I did. 'Twas on a freezing cold December afternoon in London in 1973. Hundreds of us commuters had been evicted from London Bridge underground station after the IRA had issued a bomb warning (there was no bomb that time, by the way). We'd been standing around for ages in the cold street hoping to get back in when a very small lady, who looked about 80, struck up in a stentorian voice in her cockney accent with the Cherry Tree carol. It was so uplifting and the gloom among we frozen hordes was immediately lifted. I've never forgotten that, I know no-one can ever hear what I heard that afternoon, and I've treasured that memory for half a century! |
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22 Dec 25 - 06:02 AM (#4233337) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: GUEST,Peter Cripps 'Ivy and the Holly' by the Kippers is pretty good, also 'Bha Buachaillan an Duthaich Shear' by Julie Fowlis (IMHO) |
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22 Dec 25 - 09:00 AM (#4233339) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler On bandcamp there is an album of Christmas related items by the Larks of Dean Quire. This is from live recordings from concerts some years ago and is mainly material sang by the original Larks of Dean, Baptists from Rossendale, Lancashire, where I now live. Some of these work well as two part harmony, though they are peformed as four parts. The album is available for a donation of your choosing. Robin |
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22 Dec 25 - 09:13 AM (#4233340) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: The Sandman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSGt49f0kZc Dick Miles |
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22 Dec 25 - 09:14 AM (#4233341) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: The Sandman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSGt49f0kZc |
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22 Dec 25 - 09:28 AM (#4233342) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Dave the Gnome Great version, Dick. Thanks |
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22 Dec 25 - 10:30 AM (#4233345) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Dave the Gnome Sorry, Joe. I didn't spot your question earlier - Yes it is Maddy singing the verses on Gaudette with the rest of Steeleye Span harmonising the chorus. Out of interest, their only other chart hit, All Around My Hat, while not a Christmas song, was in the top 10 around Christmas 1975. |
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22 Dec 25 - 10:48 AM (#4233346) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: pattyClink Thanks for the good story Steve, and applause for Dick's song! |
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22 Dec 25 - 11:41 AM (#4233348) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Reinhard For ever what it's worth, I have compiled a list of Christmas and seasonal albums featured on Mainly Norfolk. |
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22 Dec 25 - 12:03 PM (#4233350) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: The Sandman thankyou |
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22 Dec 25 - 12:59 PM (#4233352) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Stilly River Sage Wonderful story, Steve, thanks! |
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22 Dec 25 - 01:33 PM (#4233354) Subject: RE: Christmas songs by folk artists From: Seamus Kennedy While down the rabbit hole, I found this: https://music.apple.com/us/album/goodwill-to-men/189473763 |