The First Day of Christmas: Twelve

(reposted fro 12/26/2008)
Christmastide began last night and stretches through Epiphany on January Sixth. So in honor of that tradition here's John Denver with the famous muppets and an early Sunday Concert:

http://youtu.be/8MX43ynMvm0

Sunday Concert: Matthew

Sunday Concert -- Lillian's Song

Twenty years ago this morning -- it was about 5:30 -- Sheila woke me to announce that the baby had punctured her private little play pool and maybe we'd better drive over to Floyd Medical Center. We spent all day there and into the evening, Sheila working about as hard as I have ever witnessed anyone work. They call it labor for a reason. Finally a little after eleven, Lillian Matthews Shaw made her entrance. What a wonderful blessing to our lives she has been!


When my daughters were little I had an "I Love You" song for each. Brannon's birthday is coming up in eight days, I'll save hers for later. Today here's Tony Bennett singing Lillian's "It's a Sin to Tell A Lie"




Bobby Vinton recorded the song:



Even John Denver sang it. You have to listen through another song first.


Last year I posted a youTube collage of Lillian pictures. Check that out here.

Sunday Concert: Early John Denver

Here's John Denver, again, this time with the short-lived trio that succeeded the Chad Michell Trio: Denver, Boise, and Johnson. "I wish I knew how it would feel to be free"

Sunday Concert: John Denver and Placido Domingo

Here is another clip of John Denver. What a wonderful songwriter. Actually this video is mostly Placido Domingo. It's a twofer. The first selection is the gorgeous duet of John and Placido on Denver's "Perhaps Love". Then after a bit of French commentary, Placido sings "Time after Time"

Sunday Concert: Follow Me

I watched a retrospective on John Denver as I graded papers today. It was on public TV. Milt Okun, who produced records for PP&M, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Denver, and many others, mentioned that two of John Denver's songs are among the top ten most used wedding songs. One of those is "Annie's Song". I didn't catch the other, maybe it was "For You". On August 8, 1971, another of his songs was sung at the wedding of Sheila Matthews and Terrell Shaw. My sister Beth sang it beautifully then. Here is a very young post-Jet-Plane but pre-superstardom John Denver singing it on Upbeat, a Cleveland-based rival show to American Bandstand. Since Sheila and I were (and are) strong feminists, we used the altered last line PP&M used, "...take my hand and I will follow, too."





As I mentioned in the post with last week's Sunday Concert, Sheila and I think John Denver's concert at the Omni in Atlanta in the early seventies was one of the best concerts we've ever attended.

By the way, I checked several online wedding song lists and am sad to report that Denver's songs seem to have fallen off the wedding song charts. I still like them.

Sunday Concert: The Chad Michell Trio

The Chad Mitchell Trio

What serious fellows! It was a different time. Chad Mitchell, Joe Frazier, and Mike Kobluk, could be very funny and irreverent, but they could take themselves a bit seriously too. What gorgeous harmony they produced.

I always enjoyed the Chad Mitchell Trio. When I joined the "Columbia Record Club" in the early sixties I bought a Mitchell Trio album or two. Here they sing the folk classic, "Dona, Dona, Dona". Notice the guitarist? That's Jim (later Roger) McQuinn who would found the legendary Byrds.

In 1965 Chad went off on his on and the group held nationwide auditions to replace him. Singer/songwriter John Deutschendorf, who had renamed himself John Denver, took Chad's place in what was now The Mitchell Trio.


Enjoy.



Later note:
[I replaced the orininal clip with a longer one from the same TV show - The Bell Telephone Hour.]

One night back in 1969, Don Baird, my intrepid first cousin and radio journalist, was dispatched from WSB in Atlanta to interview the popular folk trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary. He says he regularly conducted three interviews a night -- fewer after the Braves moved to town and "...gobbled up all the airtime." Often Don would dash over to the airport waiting area to talk with a celebrity or politician passing through. This night he met up with PP&M backstage at the old Altanta City Auditorium. Mary was the expansive one, Don says. She talked up a storm. Among the nuggets she tossed him for that night's edition of WSB's "Nightbeat" was this tidbit:

"We're debuting a new song tonight, "Leaving on a Jet Plane". It's by a young German fellow named John Deutschendorf." - Mary Travers

That song got John Denver noticed and soon he was a chart-topping one man act. Sheila and I saw him at the new (now long gone) Omni arena. He sang for a couple of hours straight on a revolving stage in the center of what would be, on other nights, the Flames hockey rink or the Hawks basketball court. John Denver knew how to do a concert! It was one of the best concerts I have ever attended.

Sheila and I bought all his records and a songbook or two and his "Matthew's Song" became part of my own repertoire.