Folk Songs for Little Sailors

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Another of the Hance childhood favorites from the rare Riverside Wonderland series, this is a compilation of sea chanteys sung and played by folk professionals. Oscar Brand stands out as a performer.

Take a listen:

Oscar Brand sings Bunch of Roses

Download Folk Songs for Little Sailors (89.2MB zip file)

LP jacket for Folk Songs for Little SailorsFolk Songs for Little Sailors
Riverside Wonderland RLP 1424
1966

Tracks:

Sail Away, Sail Away – Bob Gibson
The Walloping Windowblind – Oscar Brand
The Bold Fisherman – Oscar Brand
High Barbary – Billy Faier
The Sailor’s Hornpipe – Billy Faier
The Fishes Song – Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl
The Golden Vanitee – Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl
Two Little Boats I Spy – Louise DeCormier
The Mermaid – John Runge
The Flying Dutchman – Dean Gitter
Belfast Hornpipe – Margaret Barry
Sir Patrick Spens – Ed McCurdy
Bunch Of Roses – Oscar Brand
Midnight On The Ocean – Oscar Brand
Sailing Along And Singing – The Renaissance Chorus

Come and See the Peppermint Tree

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Got an extremely rare download for you. This is an album that my sister, brother and I had when we were kids in the sixties. We had a kids’ turntable; must have been a Fisher-Price one, I think. We played this record to death!

The songs on this record go a way toward explaining me and my siblings’ sense of humor. Interspersing magical things—such as sliding down rainbows, talking critters, and elves—with everyday experiences, like finding a penny or playing on a swing, the story is partly sung in a wacky falsetto, partly narrated, partly evoked with quirky piano accompaniments that used more modernistic dissonant touches than I’ve ever heard in kids’ music, then or since. The whole thing had an edge…so sincerely, enthusiastically silly it verged on weird and nutty.

Listen to “My Shoes Went Walking”

We’ve spent years searching for a reissue, or someone else’s rip, or a less damaged copy—anything—for years, to no avail. Recently, I discovered that my brother-in-law owns a vinyl-to-digital converter. So on my last family visit, I borrowed the LP from my mom and converted it.

I’ve cleaned it up as best I could with Audacity; that is to say, it’s pretty gnarly. Track #21 had pretty hopeless skips, which I could not really repair properly. Well, take it or leave it!

Download it here: Peppermint Tree (95 MB zip file)

Come and See the Peppermint Tree

Artists: Donny McKayle, Evelyn D. Lohoefer, Stan Raiff, Charlie Byrd
Composer: Evelyn D. Lohoefer
Riverside Wonderland RLP 1453
1960

Cover photo, courtesy of Gabrielle McKayle:
album jacket of Come and See the Peppermint Tree

SIDE A

Follow Me
Kitchen Stuff
My Shoes Went Walking
The Yellow Bee
Jabberty-Jib
The Elf
A Shiny Penny
Putt-Putt
My Pretty Red Swing
Riddle
Dance Awhile

SIDE B

Jump and Spin
Riding on a Star
Me, Too
Wheels
All Mixed Up
Miriam
The Dress
The Ribbon
Carrots and Things
The Crow, The Worm and The Fish
The Moon in the Yard
Thingamabob
The Peppermint Tree
Mr. Sandman

Rescuing old vinyl

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Hi all, it’s been a long while. Just wanted to let you know I’m working on a project cleaning up rips from a couple of beloved old childhood LPs.

I’m using Audacity, the free audio editor. It has a horrendously ugly and unintuitive user interface but it can do a few useful things, like attempt to remove clicks and noise with just a couple of button presses. And slice, dice and splice audio tracks.

I’ll be posting download links soon.

My favorite music of 2009

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It was hard to choose, but here’s my favorite music of 2009 out of almost 150 albums. Don’t forget to click the Next Page links to get to the runners-up and the free albums!

If you’re on the jessibird.net home page, you’ll need to click the title of this post to see the whole thing.

Favorite albums

Please note that I do not claim that these are the best albums of 2009, simply the ones I like a lot and play over and over.

Update: Dang, my Amazon widgets evaporated. Sorry about that. No, I’m not going to recreate them, bleh.

Next page: runners-up