We of the music writing and commenting arena love gimmicks. Whether it be a background story, or a nifty band characteristic, we seem to latch on and push those features up as if they're the most important thing about the people behind the songs. It's a problem and we acknowledge it. So when we met [...]

Fort Wayne, Indiana's Black Jet Radio have reformed and offered up two new releases. "The Wayfaring Stranger" plays both classic and fresh. Eerily the band's grimier rock undertones do nothing but help roughen up the pretty portrayal of a soulful standard too far past. Black Jet Radio - The Wayfaring Stranger Black Jet Radio ( Facebook ) Rating 8.3

Ed Sheeran - The Wayfaring Stranger [Burl Ives] | zs The Wayfaring Stranger is a British spiritual folk song originating in the early 18th century. It became one of Burl Ives's signature songs , included on his 1944 album ' The Wayfaring Stranger '. The list of artists who have recorded it since is endless. Ed Sheeran's is the latest.

Burl Ives provides the voice of the narrator, Sam the Snowman, on the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special, and also sings both the title song and another tune written by Johnny Marks just for the show, "A Holly Jolly Christmas," which has became a Christmas standard in its own right: And here's another version by Ives: "A Holly Jolly Christmas" For more... [...]
The legend of Hamper McBee emerges from the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. Tennessee - Great Smoky Mountains - United States - Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Science and Environment

It's been a while since I just wrote about a song (the others are here and here ), and even though this won't actually get posted for a week or more, tonight is made for a night of meditating on "Wayfaring Stranger". This weekend was horribly overshadowed by death with an internet/real life acquaintance losing his wife many decades before he should have, and our tech guru, Trevor, losing a pet. I know some of you have no idea how sad losing a pet can be, but anyone who's ever lost [...]

It's just vaguely possible that there are some amazing gigs taking place somewhere I know not where in Edinburgh this week, but in all honestly I do not give a tinker's cuss. It's Christmas, you should all either be wrapping presents, buying the bastards, or just cooking something nice and stopping in with friends and family with some nice music. Far be it from me to lecture people on how to enjoy themselves but... well, you know me well enough by now, I'm going to do it anyway aren't I. So honestly, balls to gigs this week, there's [...]

jimmy reed christmas present blues kate & anna mcgarrigle god rest ye merry gentlemen burl ives holly jolly christmas jody daniels peppermint stick pete rugulo orchestra jingle bell mambo magnus t. cook snow bunny susan lynn christmas angel sonny bloch's corlairs louie the elf poppa hop & his orchestra merry christmas darling chet baker the first noel queen thank god it's christmas dick freitus christmas [...]

Photography by Katherine Did you guys have fun with all the 2009 lists??? Good times, eh? Aren't list fun? Yeah Doris, they sure can be. I'll keep the links up over to the right at the stop of the sidebar for a little bit, in case you need a quick-click reference when sending your angry letters to Pitchfork/Stereogum/et al for their sad little lists.... lol. Well, I've got a different "best of" for you today. Anyone who's acquainted with me knows that though I love [...]
Just in case you didn't get your fill of candy. MP3 File yousendit

Mrs. Toad and I went out for dinner last night and I mentioned the fact that I have now been in Edinburgh for over four years - the longest I've lived anywhere since I left Vienna in 1987 after six years. That's weird, really, because I kind of moved here by accident. Certainly I didn't have it even in the back of my mind to move here back in 2003 when we first started seeing each other (we met in 1991, but that's a different story). At that point I had just divested myself of a particularly tenacious [...]
While Scotter harbors his inexplicable blog-crush for the shrill Joanna Newsom, there's still no band that gets me quite as hot and bothered as the inimitable Fiery Furnaces. I guess where he finds sustenance in the pomp and flutter of courtly Elizabethan balladry, my heart is tickled by winding Germanic meta-narratives filled with labrynthine plot [...]
Bumper music is "a term used in the radio broadcasting industry to refer to short clips of music used to buffer transitions between programming elements. Bumper music is commonly employed when a syndicated program takes a break for local station identification or goes to commercial." (above control room image from HERE ) Often you'll see pop songs used to "bump" offbeat or curious news stories on cable news channels, many times the music isn't so well chosen... well, we're here to help (as we have previously HERE and HERE ). [...]

Christmas music, y'all!! Some classics, some re-workings, and two of my favorites from Sufjan Stevens. Andy Williams - "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" Nat King Cole - "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)" Dean Martin - "Baby, It's Cold Outside" Gene Autry - "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" Frank Sinatra - "Jingle Bells" Brenda Lee - "Rockin' Around [...]
As promised, post one of two for today. I'm out of town tomorrow, so this is it for me. JV will bring it home. John Prine: Christmas in Prison Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Jingle Bells Burl Ives: Jingle Jingle Jingle Lena Horne: Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow Jose Feliciano: Feliz Navidad Ray Charles: Winter Wonderland Jackson 5: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus Diana Ross & The
My family is big on the Christmas season - choosing a tree, cookie decorating, first sledding tracks, etc. Vermont makes the cheer pretty contagious, with blankets of snow and a multitude of Rockwellian scenes. The frustrating part for me has been locating the perfect soundtrack. I've purchased an embarrassing number of really bad holiday compact discs. Each time I purchase a new one I hold out that it will have classic tunes, a jolly spirit, and perhaps some interesting newbies. Sadly they seem to be rife with absolutely annoying tracks (Wham, Kenny G, Chipmunks). This [...]

( Note: Astute readers may recognize the material below; Star Maker Machine reader Duncan sent in this unusual entry via an earlier comment. It's not our usual fare, but given the high novelty value of the covers, we decided to accept it just this once... ) Goldie Hawn and the Buckaroos: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight [ purchase ] Emmylou Harris: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight [...]
Thom Stylinski is the mad master genius behind The Whiskers. On the records, he sounds like he's 7' tall, gaunt like an undertaker and with eyes like laser beams, or tractor beams. He's with us today to talk about some music. Hi! I tried to think of a theme that connects three or four songs in an elegant sum-greater-than-parts way, but that's stupid so here are three songs I was humming at work today. Jesse Stiles - "Places" Jesse Stiles totally knows how everything works; it's easy. It can't be any more [...]

I was a a sophomore or junior in high school when I had the lunchtime conversation that has stuck with me ever since. I called a friend a pussy for crying at the end of Field Of Dreams , and now I am cursed to become a tad bit teary at the very intimation that a movie I am watching will have a sad (or happy) ending. To that point in my life, when Mike told me that Kevin Costner playing catch with the guy who played his father made him cry, I had never, ever cried [...]
A multi-talented performer who should be remembered for more than a cartoon snowman. Legendary folk-singer, Oscar-winning actor, star of radio, TV and Broadway, but someone who in recent years is probably most often heard during the holidays. Burl Ives was a multi-talented performer but will forever be known as the voice of the snowman narrator of the animated Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, a perennial video favorite. The...