#harlem community choir

[littlequeenies]

1971 - May Pang can be seen on the backround of the cover photo of John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's "Happy Christmas" (War is Over), recorded between October 28 and 31, 1971.

The Harlem Community Choir – 30 children, most of them four to twelve years of age – came to the studio on the afternoon of 31 October to record backing vocals for the counter-melody and sing-along chorus. Photographs for the original sleeve cover were also taken during that session by Iain Macmillan.

Third photo, our screencap from May's documentary "The Lost Weekend: A Love Story".

[chaunceyandchumleysdad]

I’m kicking off the Christmas weekend with John and Yoko. I feel like this Christmas, more than ever, we need this song.

[blackownersseekingsuccess]

Remembering Bayard Rustin: The Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

written by Levi Wise Kenneth Catoe Jr.

August 1, 2024 - Growing up as a Black boy in Paterson, NJ, and attending Roman and Irish Catholic Parochial schools, Black history was not very familiar to me. I grew up in a religious Southern Baptist family and participated in the church choir. In this context, Martin Luther King, Jr., was all that I knew about Black history until I became a teenage Madonna fanatic. Ironically, Madonna made me aware of Black activists and radicals such as Nina Simone, Jean-Michel Basquiat, James Baldwin, and Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin was an African American activist who believed in civil disobedience. Rustin felt that Black people should deliberately break unjust laws but do it non-violently to bring about change and this would play a key role in the Civil Rights movement. He also advocated for LGBTQ rights. Rustin moved to Harlem in 1937 and began studying at City College of New York. It’s interesting to note that at the time CCNY was an all-male college once regarded as ‘Jewish Harvard’ which did not accept Black men—Rustin was an unusual exception. While Rustin was at CCNY he became involved in efforts to defend and free the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men in Alabama who were accused of raping two white women. Activism for Rustin was something that came naturally. He later became a mentor to Martin Luther King.

Rustin is one of my all-time idols. I have been enamored of him since I learned about him, so I was excited to attend an event dedicated to his life and legacy at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “Between the Lines: Bayard Rustin, A Legacy of Protest and Politics.” The event was a conversation between Michael G. Long and Jafari Allen, who edited the book of the same name. Their exchange sparked many revelations and I left the event more aware than when I entered. I felt so much pity for the life that Rustin had to live, including the attack on his character that was rallied against him by other Black people and the distance that Martin Luther King placed between himself and Rustin out of fear of people assuming that he was also gay. I also learned that it was Coretta Scott King who introduced King to Rustin. Scott-King met Rustin during her college years as a fellow activist who practiced civil disobedience. She would ultimately introduce her husband King to civil disobedience tactics. Rustin recalled that his first time meeting King he was strapped with a handgun and that he never traveled without his gun. It was Rustin who told King that if he represented civil disobedience he would have to be willing to put away his firearm, which eventually he did. Nevertheless, this raises the question, who was King really? The “I Have A Dream” pacifist or the “Beyond Vietnam” radical? We will never truly know.

All in all what I did learn was that according to Rustin, King had no idea how to organize an event. Instead, it was Rustin who developed the blueprint for King’s early Civil Rights movement, at least until the day that King removed Rustin from his inner circle.

Nevertheless, Rustin returned to organize the March on Washington, despite everything leveled against him by Adam Clayton Powel and Roy Wilkins. Someone noted during the discussion that “it’s funny how karma works given the fact that nobody remembers Wilkins's legacy in comparison to the sudden interest in Rustin.'' If I remember correctly, the comment was made by the moderator, NYU professor Dr. Jarafi Allen, based on the fact that the venue was standing room only, or that the Hollywood lens is now fixated on Rustin’s story, with an Academy Award-nominated movie based upon his life currently in theaters. Wilkins has not received the same interest from Hollywood, perhaps indicating that he is less marketable in the mainstream. Meanwhile, Rustin’s role as an activist for the LGTBQ community is also important for newer generations. Until recently, this legacy and all that he accomplished was invisible, but he has since become a symbol of the “others” and most notably the “forgotten others”. While in his lifetime he was shunned, rallied against, and betrayed by those that he benefitted, history has allowed his legacy the final word.

[obiscribbles]

Christmas Day - December 25th, 2023 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over) Remastered 2010' - John Lennon, The Harlem Community Choir, The Plastic Ono Band, Yoko Ono Spotify / YouTube

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

A few fun details under the cut~

Enjoy!

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Jester Hairston

By Life Magazine via Google Images-Photographer Loomis Dean., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28896923

Jester Joseph Hairston (July 9, 1901 – January 18, 2000) was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor and actor. He was regarded as a leading expert on black spirituals and choral music. His notable compositions include "Amen," a gospel-tinged theme from the film Lilies of the Field and a 1964 hit for the Impressions, and the Christmas song "Mary's Boy Child."

Hairston was born in Belews Creek, a rural community on the border of Stokes, Forsyth, Rockingham and Guilford counties in North Carolina. His grandparents had been slaves. At an early age, he and his family moved to Homestead, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh, where he graduated from high school in 1921. Hairston was very young when his father was killed in a job-related accident. Hairston was raised by his grandmother while his mother worked. Hairston heard his grandmother and her friends talking and singing about plantation life and became determined to preserve this history through music.

Hairston initially majored in landscape architecture at Massachusetts Agricultural College in the 1920s. He became involved in various church choirs and choral groups, and accompanist Anna Laura Kidder saw his potential and became his benefactor. Kidder offered Hairston financial assistance to study music at Tufts University. from which he graduated in 1929. He was one of the first black students admitted to Tufts. Later he studied music at the Juilliard School.

Hairston pledged the Chi chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity in 1925. He worked as a choir conductor in the early stages of his career. His work with choirs on Broadway eventually led to singing and acting parts in plays, films, radio programs and television shows.

Hairston sang with the Hall Johnson Choir in Harlem for a time but was nearly fired from the all-black choir because he had difficulty with the rural dialects that were used in some of the songs. He had to shed his Boston accent and relearn the country speech of his parents and grandparents. Johnson had told him: "We're singing ain't and cain't and you're singing shahn't and cahn't and they don't mix in a spiritual." The choir performed in many Broadway shows, including The Green Pastures. In 1936, the choir was asked to visit Hollywood to sing for the film The Green Pastures. Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin heard Hairston and invited him to what would become a 30-year collaboration in which Hairston arranged and collected music for films. In 1939, Hairston married Margaret Swanigan. He wrote and arranged spirituals for Hollywood films as well as for high school and college choirs around the country.

Hairston wrote the song "Mary's Boy Child" in 1956. He also arranged the song "Amen", which he dubbed for the Sidney Poitier film Lilies of the Field, and arranged traditional Negro spirituals.[16] Most of Hairston's film work was in the field of composing, arranging and choral conducting. He also acted in more than 20 films, mostly in small roles, some uncredited. Hairston starred in John Wayne's The Alamo (1960), in which he portrayed "Jethro," a slave owned by Jim Bowie. In 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird Hairston portrayed the uncredited role of the father of accused rapist Tom Robinson. In 1967’s In the Heat of the Night, Hairston portrayed the butler of a wealthy racist being investigated for murder. In both films, Hairston shot scenes along side men who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in those respective films for portraying white Southerners navigating their jobs through a racially divided culture.

In 1961, the U.S. State Department appointed Hairston as Goodwill Ambassador. He traveled all over the world teaching and performing the folk music of the slaves. In the 1960s, he held choral festivals with public high-school choirs, introducing them to Negro spiritual music, and sometimes led several hundred students in community performances. His banter about the history of the songs along with his engaging personality and sense of humor endeared him to many students.

During his nationwide travels, Hairston checked local phone books for other Hairstons and reunited many people on his family tree, both black and white. He composed more than 300 spirituals. He was the recipient of many honorary doctorates, including a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and a doctorate in music from Tufts in 1977.

In his later years, Hairston served as a cultural ambassador for American music, traveling to numerous countries with choral groups that he had assembled. In 1985, he took the Jester Hairston Chorale, a multiracial group, to sing in China at a time when foreign visitors would rarely appear there.

Hairston died in Los Angeles of natural causes in 2000 at age 98. For his contribution to the television industry, Hairston has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6201 Hollywood Boulevard. He is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.

[unpopular]

John & Yoko with the Harlem Community Choir recording of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” New York, 31st October 1971

[doyourememberrocknrollradio]

HAPPY XMAS (WAR IS OVER). (Ultimate Mix, 2020) John & Yoko Plastic Ono Band + Harlem Community Choir

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 02/12/2023 a.k.a. a Deep Dive into '10 Hour Deep Relaxation'

Content warning: Christmas, some language, sex and politics

Welp, it’s officially Christmastime on the chart, and I really wanted an easy week in the first place. So thankfully they gave me one, no debuts in the top 75, “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow is still at #1, I’m going to do the rundown, two reviews for song suggestions and dip. Welcome to perhaps the least essential episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

Brenda Lee’s at #14, Mariah’s at #6 and for the first time this year, a Christmas song is in the top five: “Last Christmas” by Wham!. This means that I’m in the space every year when I can mess with the structure because there is no ordinary chart week from now on, and I’m kind of glad because things tend to get busy this time of year anyway. Our top five is rounded out by “greedy” by Tate McRae at #4, “Prada” by casso, RAYE and D-Block Europe at #3, “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan surprisingly at #2 and of course, Jack Harlow coming in for a third week at the top.

Whilst we’re discussing the non-holly and non-jolly songs on the chart, there are a few gains and returns that have nothing to do with the holidays. Drake’s “IDGAF” featuring Yeat returns to #61 in the stead of “You Broke My Heart”, which drops off from its debut last week, and then we have “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims gaining at #53. We then may as well bid adieu to the songs falling victim to the holiday plague this week, also known as our notable dropouts. They peaked in the top 40 or stayed in the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, for five weeks, but now they’re out, and they are: “Nice to meet you” by PinkPantheress featuring Central Cee, “Seven” by Jung Kook featuring Latto, “adore u” by Fred again.. and Obongjayar, “Desire” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith, “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, “Daylight” by David Kushner, “Calm Down” by Rema, assisted by the remix with Selena Gomez, “Another Love” by Tom Odell and of course, “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers.

Now for the surge of festivities - I’ve already told you the three highest and that’s all I’ll tell you for now until they creep higher into the top five. As for now, as with all Christmas weeks, I’ll only mention the songs that are making it to the top 75 for the first time for this year’s round in this week, or songs reaching new peaks. In the first category, we see the grand returns of “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade at #70, “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano at #60, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis at #58, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by WIzzard at #55, “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber at #54, “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney at #52, “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes at #51, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John at #47, “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea at #46, “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #45, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by the late John Lennon and Yoko Ono with the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir at #44 - only time I’m saying that one, always a relief. The sooner we get to that mouthful, the better. We then continue with “Snowman” by Sia at #40 and “Merry Christmas” by Ed Sheeran and Elton John at #17, with the Amazon original tracks “Stay Another Day” by Jorja Smith and “You’re Christmas to Me” by Sam Ryder reaching new peaks of #38 and #23 respectively.

And whilst we’re here, if I covered the entire top 100, which I have an array of reasons why I don’t but they’re becoming increasingly irrelevant, I would still only be reviewing one song: “#skeptacore pt. 3” by Ryder and Skepta, a cute little wistful weightless grime remix of a Skepta track that I actually checked out when it was released a month or two ago.I’m holding out for it to stick past Christmas because it’s actually pretty brilliant. If it doesn’t end up in the top 75 in January, well... it got Best of the Week in absentia. Let’s review randomly-selected songs from the batch provided to me by viewers like you.

SUGGESTED REVIEWS

Suggestion #1

Like Santa pulls gifts from his sack, I pulled out two randomly-selected song suggestions from the 49 that I now have, except I excluded a certain suggestion submission because he… sorry, it’s anonymous. SOMEONE added like morbillion songs so I actually chose from 20, and then I chose from 19, because someone else suggested Travis Scott’s “FE!N” as if I hadn’t reviewed it before. Regardless, our first suggestion is “Like a River” by Frederico featuring Tiffany Aris. Frederico is a German producer hiring Brussels-based singer Tiffany Aris for a dance-pop effort and it’s pretty effective. It has a decent amount of melodrama with the unnecessary reverb and how it starts with an overwhelming level of synth suffocation, and it almost reminds me of 2013’s weird blend of folk and EDM given the heavy and sometimes pretty stripped use of acoustic guitars as the main melody in the verses, it reminds me of “Counting Stars” especially with the snaps and several dusty layers of acoustics that eventually propel into a pretty typical house beat, with cascading synths pushing in during the chorus. I respect how it goes for more of a house format instead of a build-drop EDM structure, so the song - however basic its lyrics - does ground its narrative a bit more effectively. Aris is a good singer and whilst the chorus does feel cluttered with the several attempts at a hook, which only gets worse when she starts doing vocal riffs and backing vocals eventually, she is surprisingly emotive throughout all of it. As a song, it’s functionally fine, but it’s also just not my thing, honestly. I can appreciate a lot of genres but this kind of phase-through-you dance-pop glut feels more fitting for an advert than being on Spotify as a full song, and I do think it runs out of steam by the end. Like I said, the chorus throws a lot of hook melodies at you, in a pretty rushed fashion, and we get a song that sacrifices its respect for catchiness. That wouldn’t be a problem if those hooks were more punctuated or really damn good, but what we have here just isn’t all too up to par. Sorry.

Suggestion #2

Our second suggestion is… a bit unorthodox. One joker suggested one song and one song only, “10 Hour Rain, Thunder, and Lightning | Deep Relaxation, Meditation, and Sleep”. The song I assume they meant by this, the highest search result on Spotify and only one I could find with that exact name, even down to the Oxford commas, is far from 10 hours. In fact, it’s five minutes and three seconds. Released in 2022 on the label Truefin Music, which seems to be one guy, who is the same guy the song is credited to. It may be by “10 Hour Deep Relaxation” but in reality it’s by a self-declared “music man” from Miami, Florida, who also goes by Bluefin Music online. He released his first single in 2018 under the name Tropical Punk, and it’s a cute little Spanish jam called “Mar y Sol” that whilst amateurly mixed as one would expect, is actually decently professional and very fun for what it is. I could see it as a theme song for a show about some groovy Hispanic surfers, I don’t know, it’s fun. He released a second song in 2019, “Dragonfly_summernight”, and it’s not great, it’s more ambitious than the last as well as being slower and in English, and it just doesn’t feel like a very natural fit. He could have usually found himself in this pop rock lane though. It sounds a bit like a local band rather than a singer-songwriter but with some refinement I can see a lot of appeal in this sound that’s informed by 80s soft rock cheese whilst still being relatively contemporary and with an… interesting vocal take. Hell, I actually really like the bridge and think it’s a pretty inspired little detour. So, naturally, after I found out that the 10 Hour Deep Relaxation guy was a failed two-song singer-songwriter, real name Gustavo Ordunez, it’s not doxing if it’s on Spotify, I checked his social media to see if there was any explanation to why he switched to the ambient stuff. So I looked through ALL of his Tweets. Or Xeets, I suppose.

We do get kind of a story here. In 2011, he Tweets that he made his account because he has a chance of winning $1000, and maybe that budget when to recording his two songs, who knows? He appears to have been romantically involved with one “jellsbells07”, whom he pretty consistently made loving posts towards, and called her the prettiest white girl he knew. On March 5th, 2012, he posted that she was a dick, and then a minute later, that she was the “most beautiful lady in all the lands”. In November, he got a new phone and by December, he was making passive-aggressive Tweets about a girl missing out on Italian food, and given some other Tweets at this time, they may have broken up, as in early 2013, he Tweeted that he was on the cusp of reanimation, went to strip clubs, and in April, Tweeted separately: “Man mode active” and “#thisbitch”.

He started being all profound in May of 2013 before the end of the month where, maybe they didn’t break up, maybe it was temporary, maybe all this time they were friends, who knows? Either way, he started Tweeting jellsbells again, notifying her that he was listening to 2Pac outside of a Starbucks, “#thuglife”. Then he started tracking his runs, which he does for like half a decade on Twitter. Interestingly enough, in October of 2013, he was still Tweeting his possible former lover jellsbells with stuff like “Real man breakfast” and how someone “don’t need no women”, which just seems like harassment at that point but I’m sure I’m missing some needed context and deleted or private replies. In November, he Tweeted possibly the best one liner of all time: “Don’t piss and text. #splashmountain”.

By December of 2013, he was defnitely dating jellsbells again because he was hornyposting on main, and we find that he is still in education during February of 2014. He was grinding at the gym this year, setting “impressive cardio records” and being generally appreciate of human anatomy, stating that “thumbs totally […] rock”. He gets a bit boring talking about his workouts and biceps in brief anecdotes, but on Christmas Day… he posts feet. To be clear, he actually just retweets an image someone else had posted showing three people, one of which is Ordunez, with varying levels of footwear. I don’t know which one is him, but there’s feet regardless.

He once again started to Tweet reclusive, fake-woke one-liners in 2015, ones that I’m sure he’d be embarrassed by now, as well as continuing to track his runs. In May of that year, he Tweeted, without context, “Lol irony”, and in June, “I care for you. I really do, I really do”. I hope jellsbells07 is okay.

That month, he went on a bunch of runs and listened to Paramore’s “Ain’t it Fun”, and he was actually really active during this time but I can’t lie, most of it is abstract and slightly insufferable non-Tweets that are half-poetic. In July, he Tweeted, “the microchip has been compromised” and in August, “I beats meats man”. These are not the only political posts I could find from our protagonist, he Tweeted against capitalism in September, but I just like the dichotomy. He touched a manatee in February of 2016 and continued to track his runs. That’s what he spent most of the year doing, he didn’t Tweet much that year so I assume it was an inward-looking year. He had some what appear to be post-breakup posts, retweeted Neil deGrasse Tyson and some posts criticising Donald Trump, but that kind of appears to be it.

It’s much of the same in 2017, with even less of a Twitter presence, the vast majority of it being tracking his runs through the same third-party app, which he probably forgot was still doing that. In December, however, he did Tweet that his big regret from 2011 was “not staying in school full-time”, which is… interesting, given that he’d been more outwardly depressive and political in the years before? In January of 2018, he was actually still quoting and tagging jellsbells, and this seems to align with a new brief period of activity early this year, with mostly very positive, wholesome Tweets about how he’s blessed and filled with love, posting a rare selfie in April and yes, still tracking his runs. Possibly my favourite Tweet from him is on May 1st, 2018, and it reads: “BOY DO I LOVE DOING STUFF FOR PEOPLE I LIKE”.

In June, however, he had another one of those semi-poetic, vaguely coherent breaking down moments, which came with a lot of Tweeting as well, some of which was oddly funny, like him quote-Tweeting a picture of a snake in a boot from a year prior, questioning why he’s thinking about it, but most of it just seems a bit sad, but by August, he says he was in bliss… and thanked Taco Bell for words of wisdom. In October, he retweeted Russell Brand. I think he knew. In November, he released his debut single.

He went on a bit of a Twitter break until January of 2019, wherein he got even more abstract, with a lot of motivational weirdness throughout that entire year, and by the entire year, I meant two years because he was doing this in 2020 as well. In fact, he took most of 2019 off - despite apparently playing a gig around 2018 and 2019 time, probably to do with his single release - and returned to Twitter in July of 2020. It got borderline conspiratory at times. In November, he started streaming on Twitch, but he doesn’t have any VODs so I couldn’t find anything of interest. It seems like he was doing some gaming but also just livestreaming his musical creative process, which is really cool. He streamed on Twitch pretty constantly during the last two months of 2020, but he hasn’t Tweeted since 2021 or liked anything since 2022. Truefin Music appears to be his brand, I think he’s from Cuba, he seems like a decent guy, I just genuinely have no idea why he made this pivot other than I guess the streaming money but he didn’t announce it anywhere. Maybe he’s kind of ashamed? I don’t know, maybe I would be too.

It’s beautiful but also a bit worrying that I have created this perspective of Ordunez. I don’t really know much about this guy, but I also feel like I know everything from this journey. I’ve just created a guy, a character. In my mind, he’s married to jellsbells07 and he still listens to 2Pac outside of a Starbucks, just now the clean version in his car with his one-year-old son in the passenger seat. Maybe he made the 10-hour meditation single to stop him from crying.

For the record, his relaxation release isn’t even great, it’s a stream-trolling, maybe even stolen ambient palette that isn’t really dynamic enough to feel effectively like ambiance. It’s honestly quite the opposite, at least to me, it’s a bunch of fuzz most of the time instead of being what it describes itself as, but from what I see on his Twitter, the man is honest to a fault and also somewhat pretentious, but willing to put himself out there. I’ve looked through all this man’s non-reply Tweets - maybe the replies could be a further episode - and the singles he made in the late 2010s make so much more sense to me than this 2022 pivot, and it’s pretty telling that he only released the one ambient track.

I would like to end this weird, unexpected way of handling this suggestion by reciting two consecutive Tweets made by Gustavo “10 Hour Deep Meditation” Ordunez in 2013 that particularly resonated with me, and I think will provide a great deal of closure to our story. Ahem…

“A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men.” “You know what guys get for free? Handjobs. From ourselves.”

Thanks for everything, Gustavo.

Conclusion

Hopefully next week there’ll be people starting to clammer for that Christmas #1? Or you know, anything at all? But I can’t lie, these slow weeks where I can have a nap and wake up to doing a really simple, dry episode… kind of growing on me, man. If you read this, thanks? Rest in peace to Shane MacGowan, and I’ll see you next week.

[krispyweiss]

Tedeschi Trucks Band at Palace Theatre, Columbus, Ohio, March 21, 2023

Comparing Tedeschi Trucks Band to other groups is unfair to other groups.

Comparing Tedeschi Trucks Band to Tedeschi Trucks Band is similarly unfair to Tedeschi Trucks Band, for TTB, when cooking with gas, is virtually untouchable, a group that douses fuel on any slow-burning audience and leaves ashes in its wake.

In the interest of the greater good, Sound Bites will take the latter tack with this review of the 12-piece collective’s sold-out, March 21 gig at Columbus, Ohio’s, Palace Theatre. By that measure, TTB, 13 years after its formation, has entered its own we’re-gonna-play-some-new-stuff phase, resulting in a down-and-up concert that featured top-flight performances of sometimes-middling material.

The single-set, 115-minute show began tepidly with “Hear My Dear,” one of many tracks culled from 2022’s four-album I am the Moon series. These are songs such as “Playing with My Emotions,” “Yes We Will” and “Ain’t that Something;” numbers with simplistic lyrics and arrangements that don’t take the band’s full capabilities into consideration. It was 30 minutes of these selections - and others later - before “Midnight in Harlem” emerged.

Where the setlist was lacking - light on the well-chosen covers that TTB so easily plug into - the players were fully amped, with the brass section blaring and the two-drummer backbone perfectly aligned.

Flanked by their 10 compatriots, with horns and choir on opposite risers and drummers perched between, wife-and-husband namesake band leaders and guitarists Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks proved the wisdom of opposites pairing. She - lifting her legs and swinging her axe - is a demonstrative soloist from the Buddy Guy school while he is a stoic slide player channeling Duane Allman. And together, they’re a two-alarm, 12-string blaze.

Similarly fiery on the mic, the raspy Tedeschi benefits from co-leads from keyboardist Gabe Dixon and background singers - and occasional soloists - Mark Rivers, Mike Mattison and Alecia Chakour.

Tighter than any 12-piece band has any right being, TTB also mixes up the instrumentation. The horn section thus sat out the soulful, Mattison-sung “Emmaline” and Trucks led the a five-man iteration through “Pasaquan,” the “Third Stone from the Sun”-inspired instrumental that ran 20 minutes, including a drum duet that found Tyler Greenwell playing with his hands while Isaac Eady slammed his kit.

Trucks - who walked around the stage all evening to silently commune with soloists - sat down and looked on.

When the remaining players returned, the home stretch ensued with full-throttled takes of “Let Me Get By” and “Show Me,” songs and presentations that found Tedeschi, Trucks and the entire Band at their best and in their element.

Anyone seeing TTB for the first time would’ve been bowled over by the show. Anyone who’s seen the group multiple times would’ve been slightly underwhelmed. And it just goes to show that sometimes, what they play matters almost as much as how they play it.

Grade card: Tedeschi Trucks Band at Palace Theatre, Columbus - 3/21/23 - B+

3/22/23

[numetaljackdog]

sos. saas. top 40 ranking week of 12/31/2022. i even copied the right one this time

Steve Lacy - Bad Habit

Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song

Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

Beyoncé - CUFF IT

Sam Smith - Unholy (feat. Kim Petras)

Wham! - Last Christmas

Thurl Ravenscroft - You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Drake & 21 Savage - Rich Flex

Kelly Clarkson - Underneath the Tree

SZA - Shirt

Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock

Gene Autry - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The Weeknd - Die For You

Harry Styles - As It Was

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You

John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Perry Como & The Fontane Sisters - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (with Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra)

Bing Crosby, Ken Darby Singers, John Scott Trotter & His Orchestra - White Christmas

Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me

Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas

Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

The Ronettes - Sleigh Ride

Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero

The Jackson 5 - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Metro Boomin - Creepin' (with The Weeknd & 21 Savage)

SZA - Kill Bill

Chuck Berry - Run Rudolph Run

Andy Williams - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick

Frank Sinatra - Jingle Bells

Nat King Cole - Deck The Halls

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Burl Ives - A Holly Jolly Christmas

Gene Autry - Here Comes Santa Claus

José Feliciano - Feliz Navidad

Andy Williams - Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season

Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime

David Guetta - I'm Good (Blue)

Michael Bublé - It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas

Chris Brown - Under The Influence

[eitmonline]

EITM Playlist 12/21/22

Run-DMC - Christmas In Hollis | 6:06/5:06c

Radio City Christmas - Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers | 6:28/5:28c

Ashe - The Christmas Song 6:33/5:33c

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping | 6:59/5:59c

Jon Bon Jovi - Please Come Home For Christmas | 7:31/6:31c

“Silent Wookie” | 7:46/6:46c

Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town | 7:51/6:51c

Band Aid - Do They Know It’s Christmas? | 8:28/7:28

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You | 8:58/7:58c

Billy Mack - Christmas Is All Around | 9:23/8:23c

John Williams - Main Title from "Home Alone" ("Somewhere In My Memory") | 9:38/8:38c

John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 9:43/8:43c

Lou Monte - Dominick The Donkey | 10:13/9:13c

David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy | 10:39/9:39c

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In Memoriam: A Eulogy for Professor Walter J. Petry Jr. 

Professor Emeritus Walter J. Petry Jr. died on August 13, 2024, at the age of 92. The first Black professor to join the faculty of Fairfield University, Professor Petry taught history in the College of Arts and Sciences for 48 years, from 1957 to 2005.  He served as inaugural director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program and received the Martin Luther King Jr. Vision Award in 2003. 

Donations in memory of Professor Petry’s many contributions to the University community may be made to the Fairfield Bellarmine Fund. 

By Lee Penyak ’84, PhD

Photo: Professor Walter Petry teaches class on "Modernization in the West."

Walter J. Petry Jr., professor of history at Fairfield University from 1957 to 2004, died on August 13, 2024, at the age of 92. He was the only child of Walter J. Petry Sr. and Lois Petry (née Gairy). His father moved from New Iberia, Louisiana, to New York City in 1921. His mother’s parents, originally from the Caribbean islands of Grenada and St. Kitts (now both tiny independent nations), settled in New York in the late 19th century. Walter Petry Sr. worked for several years in the U.S. Postal Service, was one of the founders of the Catholic Layman’s Union of New York, and, in 1989, received from Cardinal John O’Connor the prestigious Pierre Toussaint Medallion – awarded to a member of New York City’s Black community for demonstrating an active commitment to freedom, human rights, and spiritual values. Lois Gairy graduated from Hunter College in 1930 with a major in Latin and Greek, and eventually taught English, earth science, and mathematics to junior high students in the New York City Public Schools system for many decades. To a significant extent, Professor Petry followed in his parents’ footsteps by combining their commitment to education and social justice into an extraordinary academic career at Fairfield University that spanned nearly 50 years.

Born on June 30, 1932, Walter Jr. and his parents first lived on the top floor of a brownstone with extended family on East 130th Street in Harlem. Among his earliest recollections and frustrations was working on his basic Lionel train set which needed to be equipped with a transformer to allow the AC locomotive engine to run on the DC current then dominant on Manhattan’s East Side. In 1943, his parents bought an 1890 brownstone on 418 West 160th St. in Washington Heights which had a magnificent view of the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan’s oldest (1765) surviving residence. Walter lived with his parents, maternal grandfather, and aunt (his mother’s sister, Aunt Dorie) and was proud to call 418 home for the rest of his life. When reminiscing about his dwindling childhood in the Heights, he mentioned being walked by his mother to school, taking the five-cent subway ride by himself once he turned 13, and the historic 25-inch snowstorm on December 26, 1947, that allowed him to sleigh ride from the bottom of his stoop to Edgecomb Avenue. Walter spent parts of every summer until he was 16 years old at the Catskills home of his beloved godmother Harriet Baltimore. Daily hikes instilled in him a deep appreciation for nature and advocacy for the protection of the environment.

The Petrys were members of the Church of St. Joseph of the Holy Family on West 125th Street and Convent Avenue, and traveled there by subway for Sunday Mass. Now known as a Catholic church with mostly Black parishioners, the parish was originally established for German Catholics and had become predominantly Irish by the 1940s. St. Joseph’s parochial school accepted Walter as a student in 1938 (he had been denied entrance at other parochial schools in upper Manhattan and the Bronx based on race) and he studied there until graduating from eighth grade in 1945. He recalled being one of about six Black students in the graduating class of 30. He was a member of the small student choir that sang daily Mass before school, and he kept his books of Gregorian chants as prized mementos. 

Before graduating from grammar school, Walter took a competitive exam and earned admission and a scholarship to attend Manhattan Prep in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, about four miles north of his home on the Number 1 IRT Subway. This school (closed in 1971), run by the Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious teaching congregation, emphasized the liberal arts and a commitment to Christian ethos as envisioned by its founder St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719). Walter always exaggerated saying he spent more time tackling the challenging readings he was assigned in high school than he did as an undergraduate student. He admired his intimidating and demanding teacher of physics, Brother Alphonsus, and the equally difficult and engaging teacher of English and history, Charles Winans, who also served as moderator of the school’s forensic team, where he pushed Walter to become an effective debater. Walter ran cross country in the Van Courtland Park flats and woods and the half mile as a member of the indoor track team.

Walter made the seamless transfer from the Prep to Manhattan College by walking across campus in September 1949. Beginning that year, Manhattan implemented an experimental four-year core curriculum for students in its liberal arts school focusing on literature, history, philosophy, and fine arts during the ancient world (year one), the medieval period (year two), early-modern Europe (year three), and the 20th century (year four), with additional coursework dedicated to a student’s major — mathematics, in Walter’s case. Manhattan’s faculty quickly recognized the dearth of important coursework in the hard and social sciences and promptly initiated curricular changes for all subsequent students of the liberal arts. The 35 members of Walter’s cohort of 1953, however, stuck to the original four-year plan. Despite flaws in its design, Walter eventually considered that unique pedagogical approach critical to his intellectual and professional formation. He particularly enjoyed the history courses taught by Brother Gabriel, PhD, and Dr. Morrison Swift, and credited them with helping him decide to pursue an advanced degree in history.

The Korean War (June 1950 – July 1953) corresponded to Petry’s undergraduate years at Manhattan College; he and his fellow students had received deferrals before graduating. Once he graduated in May 1953, he was promptly inducted into the U.S. Army and served stateside until June 1955, first being sent to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey and then completing basic training at Camp (now Fort) Gordon in northwest Georgia. His most vivid memories of Camp Gordon were the never-ending mounds of mud in which he trained and his difficulty completing the number of pull-ups required to pass. Notwithstanding these challenges, he enjoyed getting into the best physical shape of his life and meeting young Americans from all over the country. After basic training, he was sent to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, where Petry and other privates were assigned KP duty, usually washing mess trays if they arrived early and garbage cans if they arrived on time. He made it a point to arrive early. After being promoted to corporal, he worked exclusively as a clerk in the medical service corps. Walter and other members of his unit took advantage of San Antonio’s proximity to Mexico to travel by bus to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, where they spent a few days eating delicious “foreign” food, exploring neighborhoods, and trying to converse in Spanish with the local population. This would be his first foray outside the U.S. and seems fitting since he would later become deeply interested in Latin American history.

Walter completed his military service in June 1955 and that fall began the master’s program in European History at Columbia University. There, he especially enjoyed classes taught by Jacques Barzun and Garrett Mattingly. Barzun’s publications and the courses he taught focused on European ideas and cultures and emphasized the themes of power, ideology, class, and race, synthesized in his From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present. Mattingly had recently published Catherine of Aragonand Renaissance Diplomacy and was finishing his brilliant manuscript, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 

In 1957, with his master’s degree in hand, Walter contacted several universities within commuting distance from Manhattan, including Fairfield, which had only been in operation for fifteen years and which Walter had never heard of prior to applying. He was delighted to be asked to join its faculty and commenced his nearly five-decades' routine of commuting to Fairfield via the New Haven Line every Monday morning, walking from the train station to Canisius Hall, up and down Bellarmine Road daily to his rented room near the University, and then back to the train station each Friday evening for the return trip to the city. (He never learned to drive and bragged to others — who frequently shuttled him to and from important engagements — that, as a New Yorker, he had no need for a driver’s license or a car.) As a new history teacher at Fairfield, Walter taught four sections of basic Western Civilization each semester. Upper-level European history classes at the time had usually been taught by Francis A. Small, S.J., but when he was tasked with directing the library and moving the main collection from Xavier Hall to Canisius Hall (where it remained until 1968), Walter was given the opportunity to teach courses on the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Fairfield’s history department was decidedly Euro and Americentric during Walter’s first two decades; changing times and student prompting slowly convinced the department to diversify its offerings. In the late 1970s, James Murphy, S.J., chair, asked Walter to consider a reduced courseload to take classes in Latin American history at Yale University with a view toward teaching the same at Fairfield. Walter accepted the challenge and traveled to Yale every Monday for a year to study under renowned Brazilian historian Emilia Viotti da Costa, famous for her work on slavery and abolition. Henceforth at Fairfield, Walter became most known as its Latin American historian. Until his retirement in 2005, he regularly taught courses on Latin America’s colonial and modern periods and frequently served as faculty historian on seminars offered by the Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, which he periodically directed. As professor emeritus with expertise on church and politics in Nicaragua, he was frequently invited as a guest speaker in classes where he continued to entrance students by his lively performances.

Petry was a demanding, inquisitive, intimidating, animated, and unforgettable teacher. Forever fascinated with ethnicity and family origin, he frequently referred to students solely by their surname. One needed to arrive to class prepared since Petry did not suffer fools lightly. His lengthy and challenging readings for class — mostly primary sources — forced students to analyze on their own and think independently. It wasn’t uncommon for students to spend an entire class examining two or three sentences from a single document.

Read it again,” he would bellow, after a student made a feeble attempt at analysis. “Okay, you’re getting there, but what’s the author really saying?” His follow-up questions might include: Does the author have an agenda? What school of thought does he belong to? Who is the intended audience? What’s the author conveniently leaving out? What would his detractors say? One’s head hurt from thinking so much after a Petry class. He received Fairfield’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 1983 a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004.

Petry also made his presence felt outside the classroom. Students from the ’60s and early ’70s will particularly remember his role in seminars, protests, and sit-ins against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He helped lead the (unsuccessful) charge against the granting of an honorary degree to Secretary of State Alexander Haig in 1981. At university events he frequently brought attention to repressive military dictatorships and structural violence in Latin America and to U.S. interventionism and revolutionary regime change in that region. Fairfield student newspaper articles from the 1950s to the 2000s regularly mention him and include letters to the editor written by and about him.

Petry was an inveterate traveler. Summer vacations found him visiting the British Isles, western Europe including Spain after Franco died in 1975, and many Latin American countries, including Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. He made his first trip to Nicaragua in July 1981 to observe the second anniversary of the Sandinista triumph and visited the country annually from 1983 to 1992. He methodically collected and preserved materials of the Sandinista revolutionary project for analysis by future scholars. These documents, journals, newspapers, propaganda, posters, and photos now form part of the “Walter J. Petry Collection—Nicaragua: The Sandinista Years (1979-1990)” at the DiMenna-Nyselius Library. He donated some 400 books from his personal collection to the library’s main collection.

Petry was co-editor of two Orbis Books on religion in Latin America. The first book, Religion in Latin America: A Documentary History (2006), won 1st Place in the category of “Reference Work” by the Catholic Press Association. The second book, Religion and Society in Latin America: Interpretive Essays from Conquest to Present (2009), contains his provocative co-authored chapter titled, “The Right to Appropriate, The Duty to Evangelize,” which analyzed the core set of assumptions that 16th-century Iberians brought with them to the New World. His final publication, “Roman Catholicism in Latin America,” appeared in Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions (2019) and includes valuable sections on church-state relations during the long 19th century and the emergence of a reinvigorated church since the middle of the 20th century. Petry examined topics he cared about: the human tragedy of captured and enslaved Africans, the misery and desperation of the poor, the recalcitrance and belligerence of elites, and defenders of human rights such as António de Vieira S.J. (1608-1697), Hélder Pessoa Câmara (1909-1999), and Samuel Ruiz (1924-2011). His complex prose sometimes made emotional appeals. For example, when writing about Gustavo Gutiérrez O.P. (b. 1928), the “father” of Liberation Theology, he provided the following contextual analysis and questions: “What does the Christian minister (of any denomination, time, or place) mean when he/she proclaims, ‘God loves you?’ Are not the implications of that apparently simple message that each person is worth something, has dignity, can free him or herself from base instincts, is capable of achievement, even transcendence, and is certainly capable of freeing him/herself from the snare of ‘sin,’ that is, self-indulgence, selfishness, and isolation? But is not this also true of one’s neighbor, and of all ‘neighbors,’ i.e., the entire human community?” (2006, p. 272).

Walter forged strong personal and professional relationships with former students and colleagues who could count on him for advice and wonderful tours of Manhattan. He enjoyed sharing meals and traveling with them, and appreciated the innumerable times friends chauffeured him to and from events. He spent his retirement years in much the same way he tried to spend his weekends while still teaching at Fairfield. The perfect day would have included a thorough reading of The New York Times, listening to classical music, such as cantatas by Bach (whom he considered music’s greatest genius), harpsichord compositions by Rameau, chamber music by Schubert, and nearly anything by Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, then going to an independent movie theater to see an alternative or foreign movie he boasted could only be seen by New Yorkers, followed by a late lunch or early dinner at an Indian restaurant on East 6th Street (“take your pick, they’re all good,” he’d say), and topping off the day by seeing an opera by Mozart at The Met where he had a subscription for a seat in First Row, Balcony.

To honor Walter’s many contributions to the University community, please consider donating in his memory to the Fairfield Bellarmine Fund on the university’s website at Fairfield.edu/bellarmine-give. 

[zopfia]

Gospel Tour Harlem

The Gospel Tour in Harlem is a must-see experience for anyone visiting New York City. Led by local guides, the tour takes visitors on a musical journey through Harlem's historic churches, where they can witness the electrifying performances of gospel choirs and learn about the rich cultural history of the neighborhood.

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John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” 1971

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27 Christmas Songs I Hate

(My annual expanded list, updated for 2022.)

First let me say that I love Christmas music. I've been known to play Christmas music in the summer or at other odd times of the year; Traditional, classical, pop, even "novelty" songs. But there are a select few songs that I cannot stand, and which the radio stations all seem to bring out every year. I find it hard to believe that there are people who actually like some of these songs.

So... welcome to my annually-updated list of Christmas songs I detest. This list has grown significantly over the years. If I'm in my car, I change the station the moment I hear any of these on the radio. How about you? Read on... I bet you’ll find at least a few we can agree to hate together.

1: John Lennon, Happy Xmas (War Is Over). The rhymes are as forced as they can be. I know there are people who revere John, but the horrible lines "And so happy Christmas / For black and for white / For yellow and red ones / Let's stop all the fight" prove that he wasn't always a great song-writer. And the Harlem Community Choir can't cover up Yoko's screeching, either. Right now, this is the #1 song that gets me to change the station. Yes, I appreciate the sentiment and believe peace on earth is a worthy goal. I just don't want this song to be the anthem.

2: Paul McCartney, Wonderful Christmas Time. What a horrible song. The very first note makes me cringe. And it will stick in your head, which makes it worse. In 2012 he went on SNL and played it live. It was just as bad. Why do people like this crap?

3: Whitney Houston, Do You Hear What I Hear? With all due respect for the departed Miss Houston... first off, the song is supposed to be reverent, not a belt-it-out blockbuster. Second, the phrase she sings "Pray for peace and people everywhere" is not how the song goes. The line is "Pray for peace, people everywhere." Totally changes the meaning from being a call to prayer for all people, to being a prayer *for* people. It's a fine semantic point -- almost trivial -- but it drives me absolutely crazy.

4: Beach Boys, Little Saint Nick. I hate the Beach Boys. But I hate their faux-Christmas music even more. This comes on, radio goes off. Same with any other Beach Boys Christmas song. See also #18 on this list.

5: James Taylor, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. OK, here's the biggest offender in the "I re-wrote a classic song for no apparent reason" category. James sings the line "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, may your heart be light..." which is okay even though he substitutes the word "may" for "let" which I think is a subtle change for the worse -- and I realize that's pedantic of me -- but THEN he kills the song completely with "In a year, our troubles will be out of sight." Wait a minute, in a fricking YEAR? The song is supposed to be "from now on." Apparently James is so bummed out by this Christmas that he's waiting for the next one instead. From now on our troubles will be out of sight is so much more hopeful. James wants us to put up with crappy troubles for another year. (And after the last few years,I don't want to wait another year for my troubles to be out of sight.)

6: Hall and Oates, Jingle Bell Rock. It's Hall and Oates. Although if you ever get a chance to watch the video for this, do it. It's so cheesy that it actually improves the song.

7: Michael Bolton, White Christmas. If he strained to hit that note any harder, he’d be having a brown Christmas.

8: Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Canon. Their "Christmas Eve Sarajevo" is okay since it sounds so ominous, but this one is the song where they put words (sung by a children's choir) to Pachelbel's Canon. The music is wonderful by itself but the choir makes it unbearable.

9: Backstreet Boys, The First Noel. Or maybe it's 98 Degrees, or NSync, or New Kids on the Block. Regardless, it's just painful.

10: John Cougar Mellencamp, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus -- I can't stand the country-pop twangy sound of this one. I'd say more about this but I don't think I've ever heard the song all the way to the end.

11: David Bowie with Bing Crosby, Little Drummer Boy. It's not as bad as the other ones on this list, but I don’t like this one either. Bing sounds weak and frail at this point in his life and that just makes me sad, plus the idea of David Bowie just "stopping by" his house to visit a neighbor and sing an insipid song about peace is a little contrived and silly.

12: Carpenters, Sleigh Ride. Who let that one dude sing? You know who I mean. He's the one with the terrible voice singing the two lines "There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Gray", and "There's a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy." Like nails on a chalkboard.

13: Andy Williams, The Holiday Season (Medley). I’m convinced one of the reasons Andy never made it big was because he wrote the line “so whoop de doo and hickory dock, and don’t forget to hang up your sock.”

14: Gloria Estefan, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Did someone get her a cheap electronic drum machine for Christmas? Her voice is great, but it's the "band" I have a problem with. The chorus should be "Make It Stop! Make It Stop! Make It Stop!"

15: (2011) Dan Fogelberg, Same Auld Lang Syne. Come on, it's not even a real Christmas song! Plus, the narrator meets his ex-girlfriend in a grocery store and basically entices her to drink a six-pack of beer with him in his car. Did I mention that she's married? Nothing says Christmas like some beers in your ex-boyfriend's car. When I hear this song, I have to wonder how her partner would feel if he knew she split a six-pack of beer with her ex in an empty parking lot on Christmas Eve. Then she *drives* away... Doesn't that also imply she was probably over the legal limit, too? This is a train wreck of a song.

16: (2012) Josh Groban, The First Noel. Oddly-paced and overwrought. Just when you think it can’t get any more pretentious, a choir starts singing too. So overdone it almost makes Michael Bolton's song sound good by comparison.

17: (2013) Justin Bieber. I switched this off before I even caught the title of the song. Hopefully one day people will read this list and say "Who is Justin Bieber?" From the one time I heard it, this doesn't even seem like a Christmas song.

18: (2014) The Beach Boys, The Man with All The Toys. Please stop allowing The Beach Boys to sing Christmas songs. Just no.

19: (2015) Most (but not all) versions of Baby It’s Cold Outside. Because they usually sound creepy at best, or forced… especially the version sung by Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (yes, really). However, there is an argument to be made that the song is actually meant to be empowering (for its time), by implying that the woman who is singing is making up half-hearted excuses as to why she should leave, while actually *wanting* to stay. So that means her “say, what’s in this drink?” line was actually saying that precisely *nothing* was amiss with the drink at all, not even a hefty dose of alcohol, but that she is wanting to avoid being judged or chided by her family for staying the night by basically saying she must have had too much to drink and has to stay as a result.

20: (2016) Michael Bublé and Shania Twain, White Christmas. This is such a poorly-done cover of "White Christmas" that it is a travesty. It is over-produced, the duet doesn't seem to be in sync half the time, and it has none of the wonderful playulness of the version by The Drifters. And Michael Bublé over-pronounces all the lyrics. It's like listening to Christmas music in an English as a Foreign Language class.

21: (2017) LeAnn Rimes, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. She pretty much cut-and-pastes her way through this song. Zero character, all belched out like heartburn. Every line sounds the same... “ROCKin’ aROUND...”

22: (2018) LeAnn Rimes, I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas. Apparently nothing is sacred anymore... not even novelty songs. The cadence of this is terrible. And that’s the nicest thing I have to say about this song. I shouldn’t pick on her so much but she could learn a lot from Martina McBride on how to not butcher a cover song. Two years in a row of making the list!

23: (2019) John Tesh, Carol of the Bells. You say you hate Mannheim Steamroller’s Carol of the Bells? What if we added flamenco guitar?

24: (2020) Eartha Kitt: Next Year’s Santa Baby. Santa Baby, the most popular Christmas Song of 1953 (which was banned in the Southern United States because it seemed too suggestive!) had a sequel. Did it need a sequel? It did not. (Also, any other singer’s version of Santa Baby isn’t worth listening to.)

25: (2021) Taylor Swift: Silent Night. Ah, Taylor Swift's 2021 ear-splitting rendition of solemnity. They obviously lost the sheet music to this one before recording it. The music is not Silent Night. But it is tone deaf.

26. (2022) Train: Shake Up Christmas. “C’mon y’all, it’s Christmastime!” Oh my God. I couldn’t hate the chorus to a song any more than I hate this one.

27. (2022) Chicago - Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. A late addition to 2022, and for this one, I’m violating my own rule of only one song I hate per year. I would rather listen to the LeAnn Rimes version a dozen times before I’d want to hear this one again. When I first heard this I thought it must be Kidz Bop doing a cover version of a Smashmouth Christmas cover song.

By the way, did you know that Billy Idol released a Christmas album in 2021? It’s nearly as bad as REO Speedwagon’s truly awful Christmas album I mentioned a few years ago.

Now, lest anyone think I am a total Grinch, here's my additional list of traditional and non-traditional Christmas songs and albums that I think are worth including in your playlist because they're exceptional:

Traditional:

1. Johnny Mathis, Merry Christmas (CD)

2. Frank Sinatra, A Jolly Christmas (CD)

3. Bing Crosby, The Voice of Christmas (CD) (or any other Bing Christmas CD)

4. Nat King Cole, It's Christmas Time

5. Perry Como, Greatest Christmas Songs (CD)

6. The entire White Christmas soundtrack. Except, of course, for 'Choreography.'

Non-traditional:

Martina McBride, White Christmas (CD): I am not a fan of country music, but her renditions are ultra-traditional and she does the only version of 'Do You Hear What I Hear' that stays true to the Bing Crosby version.

Chris Isaak, Winter (CD): Quirky, with a bit of a California or Hawaii feel to it.

Barenaked Ladies, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings medley": This song is with Sarah McLachlan, and is pretty cool even though she overdoes the whole "solemnity" thing a bit.

Diana Krall, "Jingle Bells": Jazzy and sultry.

Harry Connick Jr., When My Heart Finds Christmas (CD): Harry sounds a lot like Sinatra on this CD, but his version of 'Ave Maria' is exceptional.

Jewel, O Holy Night: Totally brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it. The rest of her 'Joy' CD is mediocre (and the version of Rudolph is almost un-listenable) but O Holy Night is pure and beautiful.

Leon Redbone/Zooey Deschanel, "Baby It's Cold Outside" (from the Elf Soundtrack): Something indescribably cool about Leon's voice makes this song better than the Dean Martin version. Dean's rendition seems a little more like coercion than romance. (See above notes on this song.) And despite the flaw in grammar in the group’s name, Zooey Deschanel’s vehicle “She and Him” provides some more acoustic Christmas cover songs that aren’t half bad.

That's it for 2022. More next year! Let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree. Or if you know of any I should consider adding to my list.

Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iTguNQlmcQHZuWIRmqXQq?si=X82RUCBkTg6NAh8UxvIEAA