Category Archives: Music

Music

Hutch-town

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The Hutchinson Family Singers in 1845

A little historical vignette for you today, because I’m doing other things and don’t have a book to review tonight.

My maternal grandfather was born in the town of Hutchinson, Minnesota. Nice town, west of the Twin Cities. I’ve been there a few times.

I find the town’s history intriguing. It’s named after its founders, who as far as I know never lived there. They were the Hutchinson Family Singers. The HFS hold a unique place in American history, but are largely forgotten today.

In the 1830s, European singing groups began to tour in the United States, and became very popular. The Hutchinsons, New Englanders, originally brothers John, Asa, Jesse, and Judson, emulated them, and began giving public concerts in 1840. In time they would be the most popular musical group in the country. They were the first to popularize four-part harmony in the United States, so if you like gospel quartettes, thank the Hutchinsons. After brother Jesse dropped out to write songs and manage the group, he was replaced by sister Abby, and as the family grew, the act expanded (occasionally splitting up).

The times were like ours in many ways. Political causes were in the air, and the Hutchinsons were highly “woke” by the standards of their time. They were avid Abolitionists, Prohibitionists, and Women’s Suffragists (modern people find it hard to believe, but those causes were closely tied back then. It was always about ushering in the Kingdom of God through legislation). The Hutchinsons’ songs, whether performed by the group in concert or sung off sheet music in American parlors, helped to move public opinion toward Abolition. At one point they toured Europe with Frederick Douglass.

Hutchinson, Minnesota, was (as I understand it; I can’t find it plainly stated in an online search) founded as a model town, one in which vice would be prohibited, and women would have equal rights. I’m sure it would sadden them today to know that alcohol is available for purchase in Hutchnson. But I’m pretty sure slavery is still illegal, and I imagine women run the place, like everywhere else in America.

One of the drawbacks of political relevance is that it doesn’t tend to lead to enduring art. None of the Hutchinsons’ songs is remembered today, except by music scholars. But if you’d like to hear one of them, here’s a recreation of their number, “Get Off the Track.” The tune is almost familiar.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tyoC-JccYcc
Music

Is the Girl in ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ Dead?

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(Confusion aid: This is not about the recent movie by the same title.) “Wild Mountain Thyme” is a modern Irish song that’s so popular in Scotland most people think it’s a Scottish song. It’s song about plucking flowers from the blooming heather. That’s pretty Scottish, even in Iowa. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I fear for your education. I mean, it’s not like this is a Finnish song.

According to Irish Music Daily, “Wild Mountain Thyme” or “Will You Go, Lassie, Go” was written by William McPeake of Belfast’s McPeake family, who have apparently sustained traditional folk music for the whole of the last century. This song came about in the 50s. It’s been as successful as wild moun–nevermind.

The song seems inspired by an older piece written in thicker brogue, which starts like this:

Let us go, lassie, go
Tae the braes o’ Balquhidder
Whar the blueberries grow
‘Mang the bonnie Hielan’ heather

It’s something of the same song to judge by words alone. Hear the difference here. This older piece is a love song with a lot of flower picking in it, but the new song has an odd twist in the third verse.

To back up, the singer asks his lass to pick wildflowers with him, and that’s the idea of the chorus. In the second verse, he says he will build a bower by a crystal fountain for his true love and pile all the wildflowers he can find on this bower. Then he says, “If my true love she were gone/I would surely find another” among the many wildflower pickers.

Is this short shrift for the one woman he loved minutes ago? That would give us an image of love being like a quickly withering wildflower or the lovers being like bees flying from one attraction to another. But because lovers in Irish songs so often die or are separated in some way, I wonder if the third verse gives us the picture of the singer standing beside his true love’s grave, asking, “Will you go pick wildflowers with us again? If you can’t, I can find someone else. I mean, everyone picks flowers on the hillside. But will you go? With me?”

I’m probably just reading into it.

Music, Uncategorized

Sea Shanties Are All Over TikTok, and Why Not

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Postman Nathan Evans of Glascow, Scotland has spent several months or more posting music to YouTube and TikTok. He sings some of his own songs, covers of popular songs, and also traditional Scottish folk. On December 27, he posted a video to TikTok with him singing a New Zealand sea shanty called “Wellerman.”

That’s the song that has been copied and harmonized with a thousand times over to make international media outlets write articles on everyone on social media singing sea shanties. It’s incredible. C|Net has a run down of it with some examples.

Evans told them he is as surprised as anyone with his suddenly popularity, and in a TikTok video posted yesterday he reports he has a record deal to release Wellerman as a single.

He has been planning to do more sea shanties. Fans have offered their recommendations. I thought to suggest “Leave Her, Johnny” and “Bully in the Alley,” but I see he has done these already. (Though TikTok folks may want to dwell on Stan Rogers’s version of “Leave Her, Johnny,” for inspiration. Oh, and I see The Longest Johns have already put together social media choir of “Leave Her, Johnny” with a million views since 12/30.)

Stan Rogers wrote “Barrett’s Privateers” himself, as he says in this video. That’s one worthy of taking social media by storm, despite the swearing in the chorus. Another contender would be John Kanaka, as Lars posted earlier. Here’s another that would light some people up, “Bonnie Ship the Diamond,” sung at the pace a Gaelic storm.

Music

‘Auld Lang Syne,’ with Sissel

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What shall we say about the year that is passing? If you’re reading this, you and I are survivors. Our Lord bids us live in hope. Sufficient unto the year is the evil thereof.

Blessings to you and your family, from the highly trained professionals at Brandywine Books.

Music, Religion

‘Glade Jul/Silent Night’

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It’s a Christmas miracle... sort of. You know how the movie “White Christmas” goes, when they’re all in the ski lodge, hoping/praying for snow so they can save the business, and they get a big snowfall on Christmas Eve? That happened here, in the magic wonderland of Minnesota. We’d gotten some snow early this winter, but a long stretch of warm temperatures and dry weather left all nature naked and ashamed. But last night the blizzard came in pure Hollywood style, depositing 8 or 9 inches, I guess. Today you could film a Hallmark special here. Something for the kids, anyway. If they have to remember a premature year without the grandparents, they’ll at least have memories of sliding and snowballs. And, of course, of delayed presents because the Post Office is backed up like the Donner Party.

As you no doubt deduced, the video above is the one and only Sissel, singing “Glade Jul,” which is the Norwegian version of Silent Night. Pretty much the same idea in the lyrics, except that we replaced the words for “Silent Night” with ones for “Happy Christmas.” Because we could.

And Glade Jul to you, too.

Music

3 Reasons Nat King Cole should Have a Biopic

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“I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.” – Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole, the stage name of Nathaniel Adams Cole (1919-1965), has always been one of my favorite singers. He won a Grammy for “Midnight Flyer” and had 28 Top 40 hit songs. Mel Tormé and Bob Wells’s 1945 piece “The Christmas Song” is a Nat King Cole piece in my mind; I don’t care who else has sung it.

Cole also made famous a beautiful lullaby by Alfred Bryan and Larry Stock, “A Cradle in Bethlehem,” written in 1952.

John Rowe notes the musician whose 100th birthday was last year should be on someone’s list for well-produced biopics. He offers these reasons:

  • Nat King Cole’s jazz style has drawn many followers and imitators.
  • He is one of the most popular singers of Jazz standards and class pop music.
  • He broke racial barriers with kindness.

(via Lars Walker on Facebook)

Music, Religion

The Word Was Made Flesh, Merry Christmas

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This is the real meaning of Christmas: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 ESV).

This does not mean God posed as a man for a few years, casting an illusion on everyone in order to influence them with well-spoken sermons.

It does not mean God sent his spirit into a man for a time, having found someone who was sufficiently humble to indwell for divine purposes.

It does not mean that God actually is a man who lives eternally on another plane but for a season he came to Earth to do things.

It also does not mean that Jesus was only a man who connected dots like no one before him and introduced some darn good principles to Western civilization.

It does not mean that a uniquely spiritual man called on divine power to perform marvelous works and speak with wisdom beyond the scope of mortal reason.

Those ideas are a bit easier to understand. The truth is beyond us. Christ Jesus, born as a child to a poor, virgin woman, was the Word of God from the beginning, both with God and actually God. The invisible, eternal God became a mortal man. That doesn’t make complete sense to us, but it is the only hope for ourselves and all the world.

Merry Christmas.

Music

Christmastime: Let Us Be Merry; Put Sorrow Away

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In a week, we will be set upon by Christmas. I hope you, your friends, family, and neighbors will receive God’s transforming grace to know with confidence what the Lord has done by taking on flesh and living as one of us.

The Christmas carol in this video, “A Virgin Unspotted,” used to be very popular and can be found in many variations. The music, “Judea,” was written by William Billings in 1778.

Billings was a tanner who taught himself music and was friends with men you know from the American Revolution. Britannica states, “His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality, freshness, and straightforward harmonies.” That’s what I love about this song. The joyous chorus that dances round the room.

The words come derive from a 1661 carol called “In Bethlehem City,” which appears in many versions and was originally paired with a tune that has been lost. The writers of Hymns and Carols of Christmas state, “The carol has appeared in one form or another in most of the old collections of songs, and was a popular subject for the broadside trade. Interestingly, it almost never appears in hymnals.”

I came to know the song through The Rose Ensemble album, And Glory Shown Around.

Music

Some Children See Him like Themselves

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“Some children see him bronzed and brown,
The lord of heav’n to earth come down;
Some children see him bronzed and brown,
With dark and heavy hair.”

I appreciate artwork depicting Christ Jesus as someone in a different ethnic context than he lived. I suppose that should go without saying, since we tend to understand Jesus of Nazareth did not look like the Romanized figure we most recognize. If we depict him in a painting at all, we’re going to depict him as we are.

Alfred Burt wrote the music to this Christmas carol for his family Christmas card in 1951, a tradition his father started in 1922. Alfred wrote fifteen such carols, including “The Star Carol” and “Caroling, Caroling.” You can see all of the cards and songs on this tribute page.

The carols were known primarily to those who received the cards until Burt was invited to the King Family Christmas party and introduced a various Hollywood people. That emboldened him to get enough material together for an album, which was released in 1954.

The King family was something of a big deal last century. I haven’t heard of them, but they sang as an ever-growing family for decades and had their own variety show in the mid-60s. In 1967, they put together a live Christmas special that offered viewers this special moment of a son returning from Vietnam while she sang of him on stage.

Music, Religion

‘Det Lyser i Stille Grender’

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I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this number by Sissel here before (though not this performance, which conveniently includes subtitles). But it’s high on my list of Norwegian Christmas songs that deserve to be known outside the neighborhood.

According to this Norwegian account, the lyrics come from a poem by Jakob Sande. It was first published in 1931, but the author didn’t think much of it. When Lars Soraas, who was putting a Christmas songbook together in 1948, asked him for permission to use it, Sande had forgotten about it completely. Since then it’s become his best-known work.