Category: bluegrass

Drink N.B. Merry: cocoa 2

Cocoa is such a tradition it’s shorthand allusively to aw dear skwooshy squishy emo. Alisha Merrick is a nice sing-maker, but first and foremost she’s a missus and a mommy. Get treacly romantic with her “Cocoa and Kisses.” Works for me: I’d make all my friends listen to it, if i were the guy (if i had friends).

“Hot Chocolate” gets some play from that ‘Polar Express’ movie. Everything about it horrifies me. A nice calypso turn from Janess Sifers  creates a “Hot Chocolate” that would better fit into a big biz show musical. Me, i’m more into edumusical pounding like you find in Brian Kinder’s “Hot Chocolate.” Earnest but questionable talent sells these maudlin values.

For the verisimilitude you’ve been yearning for, Tami Trisoliere blue grasses her “Cocoa Christmas” with a violin that feels like slippers, guitar like a fireplace, and a her own contralto like a fluffy plush robe. Ahhhhh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI0pl2ZKLZw

 

Consume-mas Quantities: bless the bacon

Pigs is pigs, but bacon is a meal unto itself. And not six degrees off course, but whole platters of course!

[MARIAH CAREY PARODY ALERT] Farmer Derek admits all he wants for Christmas is bacon in his song “All I Want for Christmas is Bacon” which is not the worst thing i’ve ever heard despite the source material.

Mikey Mason also plays punny with carols in his “O Bacon Tree.” Not much bacon there.

Jevon ‘The Acoustic Hobo’ gets more personal with his “Makin’ Bacon for Christmas.” It’s a dad’s reverie about the perfect holiday. Here he strums!

Fitness Dan goes shirtless with his elctropop “Bacon Bourbon Brownies.” While this is technically a confectionary and should have been dealt with last month, this beefcake sells the meat with his elegant song stylings.

Jonah Knight crosses up my categories as well with “Bacon and Beer” (imbibables next month, fans). But what a fine tribute to overindulgence 12/25 (or anytime)!

Sweet Christmas! fruitcake 5

One repetitive gag for the good ol’ fruitcake song is the receptive concept of regifting this puppy. Spoiler alert: you give it away forever! You might get it back! It’s in the postal system for eternity! Heangh-hrrou!

Plank Road Publishing has an entry here.”Everlasting Fruitcake” is a bit more fast paced than their usual careful constipation for dumb little kids. I could dance to this one.

Pat Boone is so old by now we can’t tell if he’s phoning it in, or if he’s being puppeteered by greedy descendants when he sings (makes up) “The Fruitcake.” Give the geezer credit, with this ratatat listing of everyone who regifts, he’s going for stroke.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir whoop it up with “Recycle the Fruitcake.” The pageant is the thing wherein we’ll lampoon every queer stereotype with a winkity-wink in-on-it we can flounce it and you’ll never really get it costume excess-roy. Hoo boy.

Duck Logic Comedy overplays the joke with “The Fruitcake (I Hate Fruitcake).” And it takes half the song to get to the revolving part of the joke. But more musical talent than humor wins out here.

Jesus Christ! pickin and grinnin

The Light of the World was born in the country, and country folk do appreciate him. So  many of the massive church numbers began as simple folk-grass.

The Staples Singers bicycle through “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day,” keeping the spiritual simple, showing their Xmas roots from when the power came from the words, not the orchestration and 3000 voices strong.

One of my favorite down-in-the-dirt folk albums is by some of the Seegers entitled American Folk Songs. Please to get your holy lowly from Colum MacColl’s own “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day” and Mike Seeger with “Sing a Lamb.” Well, garsh.

You can still hear traces of the heavenly choir in the harmonious Trail Band’s “New Baby King.” It’s a barn burner/praise raiser, without the tabernacle.

Jesus Christ! happy danceable bluegrass

The Reason for the Season is the appeasin’ of the diocese ‘n’ stuff like that. Don’t you go forgetting the J. Bae now. King of kings Joshua C. Carpenter got born out of Godhead and–c’mon–dead people finally get to go to Heaven. Hip hip… hosanna.

Most classic (old hat) Christmas carols praise the baby. Heck, the first songs sung for the high holy day were just hallelujah hymns, but louder. Not until about the 19th Century did we start singing about sleigh bells and trees and rooftops and santas. Let’s not hear those AGAIN.

And, by the way, every tin-roofed two-bit steeple has got ‘talented’ people attending who make up reverential songs every year hoping to amuse the mass. A guitar/piano noodling, calling Christ a ‘dude’ does not a noticeable novelty noel make unto thou. So let’s tread carefully through the minefield of modern manger music and find some GOOD STUFF.

Being in a mixed mood all month (March, y’know: lambs v. lions), I’ll alternate something classy/cool on odd numbered days with something kooky/comic on even numbered days.

Tonight’s first offering comes from Shiloh Worship Music (free music on their website, dude). I’m sure this bluegrass group are a fine looking bunch, but they hide under a bushel of stock New Testy footage for their “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Still, the jouncy, bouncy banjo beat makes you rejoice, don’t it? I do!

BLUE ALERT: number one (5)

Urine and snowfall do not denote the Holidays, i’m sure. But some of these songs are so joyful, i hafta share witch y’all. This next one even points out how yellow snow makes you think of Spring already.

Newfoundlanders Buddy Wassisname and the Other Fellers have been crackin’ up NE Canada for decades. One of their standards is “Peeing in the Snow” from their 1990 album Flatout. They play all matter of strings, accordion, tupperware, and anything else they can pick up.

State Fifteen: South Carolina

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Okay, I found “A Charleston Christmas” by Richard Hippey, but the insistent tambourine backbeat, overpercussive zydeco (including–why?–tubular bells), and generic cookie-cutter lyrics (No Local Flavor: this could be Xmas Anywhere) keeps me from recommending it. (That falsetto last note–excuse me, I need aspirin.)
Still no great South Carolina Christmas music (not even from Stephen Colbert), at least none that sings out the phrase ‘South Carolina!’
So, back to “Christmas in Carolina”: Just DON’T bother with Lallie Bridges who uses the same bosa nova backbeaten song for “Carolina at Christmas” as she does for Georgia, Tennessee, and other locales. I can’t abide this peppermint parrotry, sorry… Not when Lorraine Jordan and Carolina Road are pickin’ and grinnin’ like they do for their “Christmas in Carolina.” These grandparent-types look like show-biz newbies, playing coffee houses and bluegrass get-togethers. But their downhome breakdowns make me feel the family joy and warm home & hearths i like associating with the holiday. Cheers!

State Fourteen: North Carolina

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
I gotta tell ya. The Carolinas are worse than the Dakotas for differentiating the holiday music scene. Most songs don’t name N or S, but maintain a solidarity that all yall outsiders won’t get.
Check out Austin Rudy’s “Carolina Christmas.” It’s all USA-centric and too little ’bout states rights. Briana Atwell also sings (her original) “Carolina Christmas” available as a charity fund raiser on iTunes. Slurry blues tells it like it came upon a midnight clear. Even more romantically adult is the Marshall Tucker Band’s brassy disco-edged country version “Christmas in Carolina.” It’s slipperier ‘n a Swiss Colony sausage basket. Charlie Daniels & Friends narrates “A Carolina Christmas Carol” on his album Joy to the World: A Bluegrass Christmas. He’s trying to recapture childhood wonder about the no-snow South, but it’s just old folks’ talk (for over 16 minutes). Not A Song. Martin GT Middle School Choral Department finally has an angelic-sounding selection entitled “Carolina Christmas.” That should get you back on track for the season.
My pick of the “Carolina Christmas”es is by Squirrel Nut Zippers. Legend holds a man who drank potent moonshine (Nut Zipper) wound up climbed up a tree and was dubbed ‘Squirrel.’ These nutballs (there have been eighteen different band mates over the decades) wail with their eclectic fusion of Delta blues, gypsy jazz, 1930s-era swing, klezmer, etc (it’s on Wikipedia). Their Xmas album (Christmas Caravan) is a tradition ’round here, but don’t look for them on tour–they are been there done that so over they’re under clover. Their website has been dormant over a year now. Go, 1990s cat, go.