Saturday Song: We Shall Overcome

 

When I became a card-carrying member of the Columbia Record Club, while still in High School about 1963 or 64, Pete Seeger's Carnegie Hall "We Shall Overcome" album was one of the twelve albums I chose with my membership.

Saturday Song: Hold On!

 One of the great joys of my life was the opportunity to perform as Archiebald Craven in the glorious musical play The Secret Garden with BOTH of my daughters. A few years later I had to settle for a supporting role as old Ben the gardener -- I had aged out of the Archie role. BUT my disappointment was greatly assuaged by getting to share the stage again with one of my daughters. This time Lillian played the role Brannon had played the first time, and like her older sister before her she made this song a real showstopper. 

Here's Lillian singing "Hold On"...

Saturday Song: Tambourine Man

 

Saturday Song: God's Counting on Me and You

 

Pete Seeger was still an activist songwriter and singer into his nineties....

Saturday Song: "The Star Spangled Banner" sung by Lillian Shaw

I'm so glad the city filmed Lillian's singing of our National Anthem at the 2016 Salute to America celebration at Ridge Ferry Park. Directly across the river in our back yard we and our guests listened and then continued the celebration watching the fireworks from the levee. 

Saturday Song: Hard Rain

 Pete Seeger covers Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"...

Saturday Song: I Could Be Jewish For You

I love listening my daughter Lillian sing. She has a beautiful voice and is a wonderful actor. Her song interpretations are nuanced and intriguing, and, in this case, very humorous. From the perspective of 2023 it is especially fun. Lillian met Jordan a couple of years after recording this song, and is now engaged to that fine young man -- of Jewish heritage. Though I'd advise him not to try to guide Lillian's convictions; she has always had a mind of her own.

Here Lillian performed "I Could Be Jewish For You" by Nikko Benson on April 13, 2018 at the Atlanta Workshop Players Barefoot Playhouse...

Saturday Song: The Night John Print Died

Three years ago yesterday, early in the pandemic, John Prine became one of its millions of victims. John McCutcheon, one of my favorite singer/songwriters -- working in quarantine during the pandemic -- wrote and recorded this tribute to Prine...

Saturday Song: Tomorrow Comes!

How I love the musical "Les Miserables." Here a whole choir of Valjeans perform this rousing signature song, "Do You Hear the People Sing?"

Saturday Concert: Jubilation!

Harry's brother Tom, with help from Michael Mark (and Jon Cobert sings one of my favorite songs of all time, a simple statement of the Great (two part) Commandment...

Jubilation!

 

Saturday Song: "Being Alive" sung by Lillian Shaw

My daughter performs "Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim... 

Saturday Song: Lizz Wright - The Nearness of You (With a Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald)

 I posted this link of Facebook almost a decade ago. I want to save it here to listen again now and then.

Song: Broken Vow

I love to sing but have never learned much "music". In my fifties and sixties I decided to get some vocal coaching. Angela Flanagan McRee had coached me in the musical "The Secret Garden" when I played the lead, Archibald Craven and Angela played Archie's deceased wife, Lily. So I signed up for vocal lesson from Angela through her business, Musicworks. During those years I enjoyed recording some of the songs she coached me in singing. He is a melancholy song I enjoyed learning. We recorded it over a decade ago.

Saturday Song: Lily's Eyes

I have had the privilege of singing this duet in two productions. I sang the Archibald Craven role as part of Prospect Theater Company's Broadway Revue at DeSoto Theater in Rome, Georgia, in the late nineties.

Then jin 2004 we did a full staging of the play at Rome City Auditorium, under the auspices of Rome's Own Musical Ensemble. It was a particular joy to sing the role of Archibald in this production because both of my daughters also had major roles. Brannon had gorgeous solos and a wonderful dramatic part as Martha, and Lillian sang beautifully as Rose.

Then later, when I was taking voice lessons from Angela Flanagan (who played the ghostly Lily in the 2004 production) I recorded the duet -singing both parts. So this is a duet with myself. I tried to give the two characters Achibald and his brother Neville distinctive voices.

Saturday Song: What'll I Do.

When we bought our old house we also bought the contents which included a good bit of furniture, a piano, assorted photos, and just doodads. A gorgeous library table in the living room had an inconspicuous drawer. When we opened it we discovered it was stuffed with sheet music, some of it quite old. That was the first I ever heard of this song by Irving Berlin. I loved it. So when I was taking voice lessons from Angela Flanagan I asked that we learn it and record it. Click the sheet music below to hear it: 

Song: Mi Mancherai

Back when I was taking voice lessons from Angela Flanagan she taught me this Italian song. I first heard it sung by Josh Groban. 

Here is my recording of it.

Here are the lyrics and translation taken from another website.

Mi Mancherai

Mi mancherai se te ne vai
Mi mancherà la tua serenità
Le tue parole come canzoni al vento
E l'amore che ora porti via
Mi mancherai se te ne vai
Ora per sempre non so come vivere
E l'allegria, amica mia, va via con te

Mi mancherai, mi mancherai, perchè vai via
Perchè l'amore in te si è spento
Perchè, perchè...
Non cambierà niente lo so
E dentro sento te

Mi mancherai, mi mancherai, perchè vai via
Perchè l'amore in te si è spento
Perchè, perchè...
Non cambierà niente lo so
E dentro sento te

Mi mancherà l'immensità
Dei nostri giorni e notti insieme noi
I tuoi sorrisi quando si fa buio
La tua ingenuità da bambina, tu...

Mi mancherai amore mio
Mi guardo e trovo un vuoto dentro me
E l'allegria, amica mia, va via con te

Translation

I'll Miss You (Mi Mancherai)
I’ll miss you, if you go away
I’ll miss your serenity
Your words like songs in the wind
And Love, that you take away.

I’ll miss you, if you go away
Now and forever I don’know how to live
And joy, my friend, goes away with you

I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you, because you go away
Because the love in you is dead
Because, because...
Nothing it’s gonna change, I know
And inside of me I feel you

I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you, because you go away
Because the love in you is dead
Because, because...
Nothing it’s gonna change, I know
And inside of me I feel you

I’ll miss the immensity
Of our days and nights,us together
Your smiles when it’s getting dark
Your being naive like a little girl

I’ll miss you, my love
I look at myself and I find emptiness inside of me
And joy, my friend, goes away with you