music collection review, post 2
Jan. 21st, 2026 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarlingoneI have over 2100 music files in my VLC. Some of them are duplicates, but given that I got through significantly less than 20 in the previous post, we're going to be here a while. This is why I've never gotten all the way through reviewing my music collection.
* A Fast Song, Johnny Cash. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It's not one of his all-time great pieces, but I'm kind of fond of it? It reminds me of the family orchestra I used to sing with back home, that kind of casual little song made up for an occasion. I wish VLC handled playlists better so I could sort stuff like this better, that I don't know if I want.
* A Half a Mile a Day, Johnny Cash. I really like the ways Johnny Cash talks about Christianity and faith, and this song kind of sums up a bunch of that.
* A Hundred Years on the Eastern Shore, not sure of artist. This is probably one of the sea chanteys I got fromsophia_sol, very fun and rhythmic as a lot of chanteys are.
* A Journey in the Dark, Howard Shore. Why in the *fuck* do I have the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack on here? I didn't realize I'd ever even owned that. I mean, it's good music, I just... don't need it on shuffle?
* A Knife in the Dark, Howard Shore. Ditto.
* A Legend in My Time, Johnny Cash. Haven't heard this one before, and I don't know how I feel about it. I think for music to keep on my phone I might take it down to just songs I actively love, which cuts this one out.
* A Little Less Conversation, Elvis Presley. I've never heard this one before but it's a meme so of course I've heard *of* it. I had to google the lyrics because there's way too much instrumentation over the vocals for my taste, and I can't say it's a new favorite. Not interested in keeping it on my phone. It... it reminds me of something from VeggieTales, musically? I can't place what, something in the later part of the Silly Songs with Larry oeuvre I think.
* A Man Has Dreams, Mary Poppins soundtrack. Somehow I have two identical versions of this? I mean, I definitely like it, David Tomlinson did a lot of good work in a deeply thankless Disney career and Dick van Dyke's Bert was alarmingly formative for tiny JT in a lot of ways -- I should watch this movie again really. (I still wish I liked Bedknobs and Broomsticks better, because David Tomlinson/Angela Lansbury had a lot of potential, but it's just not very well paced.)
* A Matter of Heart, Stan Rogers. It's very fast-paced for his work? I had to look up the lyrics and I still don't think I really understand it. Not a favorite.
* A Rose Unpetaled, Frank Patterson. You remember that era in the late '90s when for some reason opera tenors doing vocal albums were everywhere all of a sudden? Frank Patterson is my favorite -- Irish, died in 2000, did a lot of hymns and classic Irish songs, and I can't even articulate how much his work has meant to me. I wasn't allowed to sing when I was a kid, because unlike the rest of my family I don't have perfect pitch and I was always told I was "ruining" the music. But when we picked up some Frank Patterson CDs, his voice is so... pure, clear, on-key, that I was able to teach myself to sing acceptably by singing along with him. So I'm very attached to all his work. (At that time I was learning the songs an octave above, as a soprano, but my voice has now dropped enough that I can solidly mimic his tenor range, which is really cool to me.) This particular hymn is a translation of a poem written by St Thérèse of Lisieux, translated by Msgr Ronald Knox, and it's not especially one of my favorites -- too much on the Holy Suffering end of things. I don't know that I'll keep this particular one around but it's the first Frank Patterson piece I've hit on the list so I had to ramble a bit.
* A Sailor's Life, Finest Kind. Finest Kind does three-part harmony on traditional songs, very very pretty; I don't know that this particular one is grabbing me. (This is probably going to be a note on so many of these.)
* A Satisfied Mind, Johnny Cash. From, apparently, the Kill Bill soundtrack? Anyway, a perfectly cromulent song I'm not overly in love with.
* A Spoonful of Sugar, Mary Poppins soundtrack. Why do I have three copies. Why do two of them spell it "suger". Obviously keeping a copy (it's one of the first songs I ever remember having on tape and I can sing the whole thing a capella) but. Huh.
* A Storm Is Coming, Howard Shore. Seriously why do I have tracks from the LOTR movie trilogy soundtrack that I don't even recognize the names of.
* A Thing Called Love, Johnny Cash. I feel like listening to this many Johnny Cash songs in a row is sort of like reading a complete collected poetry volume from any great poet? The absolute bangers get drowned in the volume of just reasonably well-done work.
* A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Ruth Golding. An a cappella sea chantey by a soprano, which is kind of unusual to find. It's set to one of those classic English long-meter tunes that has hymns set to it as well, but I can't identify it by ear.
* A-Rovin' (Maid of Amsterdam), instrumental by an unknown band, from a CD called Wind in the Rigging which makes it very hard to google. This CD has a lot of my favorite instrumental chantey covers; I suspect it of being stolen and retitled like so many of the other uncredited CDs I've owned, but I've never tracked down the original source.
* Abilene, Great American String Band, from the four-CD set 200 Years of American Heritage in Song, which has some of my favorite American folk covers and also a bunch of stuff I don't think I've ever actually listened to. This is one of the latter. It's not grabbing me. "Women there don't treat you mean in Abilene, my Abilene"... okay then.
* Acadian Saturday Night, Stan Rogers. Way too fast for me to catch most of the lyrics but in a way where it's a bop. Keeping it.
* Acres of Clams, Pete Seeger. I have nearly Pete Seeger's full discography, because I adore his combination of traditional folk and aggressively political activism along with his acoustic musical style (I grew up on Raffi, who was strongly inspired by Seeger's work), but this particular variation of Acres of Clams is activism against a specific nuclear power plant in New Hampshire, I'm not sure I'm about it.
* Across the Western Ocean, Great American String Band. This one I definitely like -- just a solid acoustic rendition of a haul-away chantey with the strong repeated refrain. For some reason I have a duplicate file though.
* Adeste Fideles, Bing Crosby. There's an hour-long (I think) Christmas special that Bing Crosby did at some point on the radio, and we had it on tape when I was growing up, so these precise covers of these carols are my childhood. We'd have this tape running on loop throughout December, and I always liked Christmas season because when our parents started screaming we could shush them for interrupting the music. So I have very positive associations with Bing Crosby. (Cannot sing along with him in the same key though. He doesn't *sound* like a bass in the resonate-the-floor way but he and Rick Astley are both basses in a quietly sneaky way. I didn't realize until I turned into a baritone myself; I can now sing along with most male singers, but not them. Well, Johnny Cash and Stan Rogers I can only get the top half of their range or so, but you know what I mean.)
* Admiral Benbow, June Tabor. Sea chantey, female performer, some sort of mandolin accomplishment? I can't quite follow the lyrics, I'm not sure if it's her accent or the sound balancing or just an issue with her enunciation.
* After All, Dar Williams. I always have complicated feelings about Dar Williams' songs? They're very referential, I don't necessarily get them. (I have no Vienna Teng, because I can definitely never understand what she's on about without having each song explained to me and that seems like a lot of work to listen to music.)
* Ag Criost an Siol, Iarla Ó Lionáird. He sings in the traditional sean-nós style of Ireland's Gaeltacht -- it's not exactly a cappella, but it has a similar reliance on the singer's voice to carry the track. I need to look up more of his work, I only have a couple of hymns off a compilation CD. I find it very peaceful?
* Namarië, JRR Tolkien (spoken word). For some reason I have this filed by the first line rather than the title? I do also have the sung version, filed under Namarië. (I didn't have it for ages because my mother didn't like it and wouldn't tape it off the library's tape of his recordings, but I found it on YouTube after losing my music collection, so now I have both, so there.)
* Aiken Drum, Raffi. This is one of the few Raffi songs I didn't have on constant repeat growing up, and I don't really comprehend it? I mean, obviously it's a nonsense song in the vein of O Susanna, but I guess it just isn't my bag.
* Ain't No Grave, Johnny Cash. I do love a spiritual, and Johnny Cash has a great voice for them. The backing track on this one is kind of odd? I think it's supposed to be like, chains clanking, but it's definitely being kind of artistic and I'm not sure that's a positive.
* The Not-So-Perfect Nannies, Mary Poppins soundtrack. I don't know that I need this instrumental track particularly? Not something that'd be especially recognizable to pop up on shuffle.
* All At Sea, The Longest Johns. I really like the Longest Johns' chantey work in general, but for some reason this is a spoken word piece? I don't know where I got this. It's not grabbing me.
* All For Me Grog, Clancy Brothers. I don't have nearly as much of their work as I'd like, I really enjoy their style.
... I'm an hour into the playlist of all my music and I have 117 hours to go. Good lord.
* All I Really Need, Raffi. This version is from his live tape, Raffi in Concert with the Rise and Shine Band, which was even more of the soundtrack of my childhood than Bing Crosby because we played it all year round.
* All Mixed Up, Pete Seeger. Not sure how I feel about it, but it's a bop, I can keep it around a ways.
* All Quiet Along the Potomac, Great American String Band. This is a poem from the US Civil War; I don't know the vocalist, the credits for a bunch of these songs are a mess.
* All Shook Up, Elvis Presley. It's a pretty fun song? I'll see if it grows on me.
* All Through the Night. I've never managed to track down any attribution for this, because it was taped off a library tape in the '80s; it's a very pretty a cappella choral rendition, but the only information I have is that it was associated with a bunch of nursery rhymes set to polka music and, for some reason, a spoken-word recording of Yertle the Turtle which I no longer have, so it bears the improbable artist attribution in my files of "Yertle German Polka Band". You see what I mean when I say some of this music is utterly irreplaceable. (I'd love to find a better copy, because by the time I transferred this one to digital it was full of static from the tape degrading, but I have zero hope of identifying where it came from even though you'd think "polka nursery rhymes" would be a trail you could follow somehow.)
* Alleluia, Dar Williams. Very strange song, don't think I'll keep it.
* Aloha Oe, Johnny Cash. I cannot say this is a combination of title and singer that I expected to find here? I have absolutely no idea how well or badly he's pronouncing the Hawaiian lyrics, as I've not heard any other version, but that sure is a Johnny Cash rendition of Aloha Oe. Baffling but not bad.
* Alunelu, Raab's Rhythm Repertoire. Instrumental music for a folk dance from... Turkey, possibly? We had this CD of folk dance music from all around the world, recorded by a band at my parents' college; the CD is now out of print and has never been uploaded anywhere I could find, so this is also irreplaceable music. (The CD name is because the folk dance teacher who arranged the recording and sold the CD was one Leo Raab.) I actually used to teach the dance, and could probably still do it if I had people to do it with, since it's a circle dance and one can't really do that alone.
* Always On My Mind, Elvis Presley. A pretty song but the lyrics aren't really grabbing me. (I have little patience with love songs about regretting not making time for your partner; after eight years with a woman who nearly dies every few months, I have strong feelings about valuing every second you get with them.)
* Amazing Grace. I have five different versions, apparently.
- One from a Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie concert sold under the album name Precious Friend; I think it's Arlo on the flute? I know Pete's breath control pretty well (what a sentence) and this sounds different. It's not my favorite rendition, too up-tempo and poppy, and Arlo just isn't quite as good at leading a singalong as Pete. (I mean, who is.)
- One from Johnny Cash's album Gospel Glory, which is exactly what you'd expect from a Johnny Cash cover of Amazing Grace and that's not a bad thing.
- One from a bagpipe album, Rob Crabtree: The Piper's Legacy, which is exactly what you would expect out of a bagpipe cover of Amazing Grace and that is a very good thing to me.
- One apparently from the soundtrack of the movie Gettysburg, which I did not remember I had. (I knew I had the credits song from the sequel, Gods and Generals, because it gives me geology feels -- it's complicated, okay -- but I seem to have acquired the Gettysburg soundtrack too.) It's a... bugle cover, maybe? Some kind of wind or brass instrument. I assume authentic Civil War instruments, knowing the movie. Not my favorite instrumental cover, because I do love me a bagpipe, but it's pretty.
- One of Pete Seeger leading a singalong, which I am very fond of.
* America the Beautiful. I have two different covers from some of those CDs of random patriotic songs that were everywhere after 9/11, credited in my files as "Brentwood" and "Columbia River Box". Brentwood is I think a lead violin and a strong backing ostinato? (I am so not good at identifying musical instruments by ear.) It spends most of the runtime wandering off into trills and variations, so it's not really my favorite. Columbia River Box manages to actually get through the entire verse melody twice before wandering off for the closing chorus.
* American Folk Sing Along, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, album Down on the Farm. I honestly love the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and need to get more of their work, they have so much on YouTube it's overwhelming. This track is a fun choral and orchestral medley of Old Smoky, Clementine, She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, Little Brown Jug, The Farmer In the Dell, Down In the Valley, The Blue-Tail Fly, and Skip to My Lou, which is certainly enough songs to live up to the grandiose title.
* American Patrol, Fingers Bennett: I do not think Fingers Bennett is a real musician. The only evidence of him online that I've ever found is in association with this CD, Down at the Saloon, which is one of those retitled records from an uncredited musician (I keep saying this, I should explain that I know this for sure about certain CDs because I was able to track down the original version on YouTube under its original attribution; the Rob Crabtree album with my bagpipe cover of Amazing Grace is one example, and Down at the Saloon comes from the same or a similar source). Anyway, the music is honkytonk instrumental arrangements of various American classic tunes; I am not otherwise familiar with American Patrol but it's a fun tune. Also, if anyone knows more about Fingers Bennett or whoever is actually responsible for this music, I'd love to find out.
* Amon Hen, Howard Shore. I keep stopping and listening to these LOTR soundtrack segments but I don't know that I'll want any of them on my phone. Except maybe Concerning Hobbits, that's a fun one.
* Amos Moses, Raab's Rhythm Repertoire. I don't know the dance that goes to this one, but it's a bop, a folk piece from Louisiana about a one-handed alligator hunter.
I think I'm going to call it for the night, looking down the list isn't a ton of stuff I'm excited about for a ways and my earbuds are going to die soon. We're down to about 116 hours left, that's progress of a sort? Jesus. How do I have so much music.
* A Fast Song, Johnny Cash. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It's not one of his all-time great pieces, but I'm kind of fond of it? It reminds me of the family orchestra I used to sing with back home, that kind of casual little song made up for an occasion. I wish VLC handled playlists better so I could sort stuff like this better, that I don't know if I want.
* A Half a Mile a Day, Johnny Cash. I really like the ways Johnny Cash talks about Christianity and faith, and this song kind of sums up a bunch of that.
* A Hundred Years on the Eastern Shore, not sure of artist. This is probably one of the sea chanteys I got from
sophia_sol, very fun and rhythmic as a lot of chanteys are.* A Journey in the Dark, Howard Shore. Why in the *fuck* do I have the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack on here? I didn't realize I'd ever even owned that. I mean, it's good music, I just... don't need it on shuffle?
* A Knife in the Dark, Howard Shore. Ditto.
* A Legend in My Time, Johnny Cash. Haven't heard this one before, and I don't know how I feel about it. I think for music to keep on my phone I might take it down to just songs I actively love, which cuts this one out.
* A Little Less Conversation, Elvis Presley. I've never heard this one before but it's a meme so of course I've heard *of* it. I had to google the lyrics because there's way too much instrumentation over the vocals for my taste, and I can't say it's a new favorite. Not interested in keeping it on my phone. It... it reminds me of something from VeggieTales, musically? I can't place what, something in the later part of the Silly Songs with Larry oeuvre I think.
* A Man Has Dreams, Mary Poppins soundtrack. Somehow I have two identical versions of this? I mean, I definitely like it, David Tomlinson did a lot of good work in a deeply thankless Disney career and Dick van Dyke's Bert was alarmingly formative for tiny JT in a lot of ways -- I should watch this movie again really. (I still wish I liked Bedknobs and Broomsticks better, because David Tomlinson/Angela Lansbury had a lot of potential, but it's just not very well paced.)
* A Matter of Heart, Stan Rogers. It's very fast-paced for his work? I had to look up the lyrics and I still don't think I really understand it. Not a favorite.
* A Rose Unpetaled, Frank Patterson. You remember that era in the late '90s when for some reason opera tenors doing vocal albums were everywhere all of a sudden? Frank Patterson is my favorite -- Irish, died in 2000, did a lot of hymns and classic Irish songs, and I can't even articulate how much his work has meant to me. I wasn't allowed to sing when I was a kid, because unlike the rest of my family I don't have perfect pitch and I was always told I was "ruining" the music. But when we picked up some Frank Patterson CDs, his voice is so... pure, clear, on-key, that I was able to teach myself to sing acceptably by singing along with him. So I'm very attached to all his work. (At that time I was learning the songs an octave above, as a soprano, but my voice has now dropped enough that I can solidly mimic his tenor range, which is really cool to me.) This particular hymn is a translation of a poem written by St Thérèse of Lisieux, translated by Msgr Ronald Knox, and it's not especially one of my favorites -- too much on the Holy Suffering end of things. I don't know that I'll keep this particular one around but it's the first Frank Patterson piece I've hit on the list so I had to ramble a bit.
* A Sailor's Life, Finest Kind. Finest Kind does three-part harmony on traditional songs, very very pretty; I don't know that this particular one is grabbing me. (This is probably going to be a note on so many of these.)
* A Satisfied Mind, Johnny Cash. From, apparently, the Kill Bill soundtrack? Anyway, a perfectly cromulent song I'm not overly in love with.
* A Spoonful of Sugar, Mary Poppins soundtrack. Why do I have three copies. Why do two of them spell it "suger". Obviously keeping a copy (it's one of the first songs I ever remember having on tape and I can sing the whole thing a capella) but. Huh.
* A Storm Is Coming, Howard Shore. Seriously why do I have tracks from the LOTR movie trilogy soundtrack that I don't even recognize the names of.
* A Thing Called Love, Johnny Cash. I feel like listening to this many Johnny Cash songs in a row is sort of like reading a complete collected poetry volume from any great poet? The absolute bangers get drowned in the volume of just reasonably well-done work.
* A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Ruth Golding. An a cappella sea chantey by a soprano, which is kind of unusual to find. It's set to one of those classic English long-meter tunes that has hymns set to it as well, but I can't identify it by ear.
* A-Rovin' (Maid of Amsterdam), instrumental by an unknown band, from a CD called Wind in the Rigging which makes it very hard to google. This CD has a lot of my favorite instrumental chantey covers; I suspect it of being stolen and retitled like so many of the other uncredited CDs I've owned, but I've never tracked down the original source.
* Abilene, Great American String Band, from the four-CD set 200 Years of American Heritage in Song, which has some of my favorite American folk covers and also a bunch of stuff I don't think I've ever actually listened to. This is one of the latter. It's not grabbing me. "Women there don't treat you mean in Abilene, my Abilene"... okay then.
* Acadian Saturday Night, Stan Rogers. Way too fast for me to catch most of the lyrics but in a way where it's a bop. Keeping it.
* Acres of Clams, Pete Seeger. I have nearly Pete Seeger's full discography, because I adore his combination of traditional folk and aggressively political activism along with his acoustic musical style (I grew up on Raffi, who was strongly inspired by Seeger's work), but this particular variation of Acres of Clams is activism against a specific nuclear power plant in New Hampshire, I'm not sure I'm about it.
* Across the Western Ocean, Great American String Band. This one I definitely like -- just a solid acoustic rendition of a haul-away chantey with the strong repeated refrain. For some reason I have a duplicate file though.
* Adeste Fideles, Bing Crosby. There's an hour-long (I think) Christmas special that Bing Crosby did at some point on the radio, and we had it on tape when I was growing up, so these precise covers of these carols are my childhood. We'd have this tape running on loop throughout December, and I always liked Christmas season because when our parents started screaming we could shush them for interrupting the music. So I have very positive associations with Bing Crosby. (Cannot sing along with him in the same key though. He doesn't *sound* like a bass in the resonate-the-floor way but he and Rick Astley are both basses in a quietly sneaky way. I didn't realize until I turned into a baritone myself; I can now sing along with most male singers, but not them. Well, Johnny Cash and Stan Rogers I can only get the top half of their range or so, but you know what I mean.)
* Admiral Benbow, June Tabor. Sea chantey, female performer, some sort of mandolin accomplishment? I can't quite follow the lyrics, I'm not sure if it's her accent or the sound balancing or just an issue with her enunciation.
* After All, Dar Williams. I always have complicated feelings about Dar Williams' songs? They're very referential, I don't necessarily get them. (I have no Vienna Teng, because I can definitely never understand what she's on about without having each song explained to me and that seems like a lot of work to listen to music.)
* Ag Criost an Siol, Iarla Ó Lionáird. He sings in the traditional sean-nós style of Ireland's Gaeltacht -- it's not exactly a cappella, but it has a similar reliance on the singer's voice to carry the track. I need to look up more of his work, I only have a couple of hymns off a compilation CD. I find it very peaceful?
* Namarië, JRR Tolkien (spoken word). For some reason I have this filed by the first line rather than the title? I do also have the sung version, filed under Namarië. (I didn't have it for ages because my mother didn't like it and wouldn't tape it off the library's tape of his recordings, but I found it on YouTube after losing my music collection, so now I have both, so there.)
* Aiken Drum, Raffi. This is one of the few Raffi songs I didn't have on constant repeat growing up, and I don't really comprehend it? I mean, obviously it's a nonsense song in the vein of O Susanna, but I guess it just isn't my bag.
* Ain't No Grave, Johnny Cash. I do love a spiritual, and Johnny Cash has a great voice for them. The backing track on this one is kind of odd? I think it's supposed to be like, chains clanking, but it's definitely being kind of artistic and I'm not sure that's a positive.
* The Not-So-Perfect Nannies, Mary Poppins soundtrack. I don't know that I need this instrumental track particularly? Not something that'd be especially recognizable to pop up on shuffle.
* All At Sea, The Longest Johns. I really like the Longest Johns' chantey work in general, but for some reason this is a spoken word piece? I don't know where I got this. It's not grabbing me.
* All For Me Grog, Clancy Brothers. I don't have nearly as much of their work as I'd like, I really enjoy their style.
... I'm an hour into the playlist of all my music and I have 117 hours to go. Good lord.
* All I Really Need, Raffi. This version is from his live tape, Raffi in Concert with the Rise and Shine Band, which was even more of the soundtrack of my childhood than Bing Crosby because we played it all year round.
* All Mixed Up, Pete Seeger. Not sure how I feel about it, but it's a bop, I can keep it around a ways.
* All Quiet Along the Potomac, Great American String Band. This is a poem from the US Civil War; I don't know the vocalist, the credits for a bunch of these songs are a mess.
* All Shook Up, Elvis Presley. It's a pretty fun song? I'll see if it grows on me.
* All Through the Night. I've never managed to track down any attribution for this, because it was taped off a library tape in the '80s; it's a very pretty a cappella choral rendition, but the only information I have is that it was associated with a bunch of nursery rhymes set to polka music and, for some reason, a spoken-word recording of Yertle the Turtle which I no longer have, so it bears the improbable artist attribution in my files of "Yertle German Polka Band". You see what I mean when I say some of this music is utterly irreplaceable. (I'd love to find a better copy, because by the time I transferred this one to digital it was full of static from the tape degrading, but I have zero hope of identifying where it came from even though you'd think "polka nursery rhymes" would be a trail you could follow somehow.)
* Alleluia, Dar Williams. Very strange song, don't think I'll keep it.
* Aloha Oe, Johnny Cash. I cannot say this is a combination of title and singer that I expected to find here? I have absolutely no idea how well or badly he's pronouncing the Hawaiian lyrics, as I've not heard any other version, but that sure is a Johnny Cash rendition of Aloha Oe. Baffling but not bad.
* Alunelu, Raab's Rhythm Repertoire. Instrumental music for a folk dance from... Turkey, possibly? We had this CD of folk dance music from all around the world, recorded by a band at my parents' college; the CD is now out of print and has never been uploaded anywhere I could find, so this is also irreplaceable music. (The CD name is because the folk dance teacher who arranged the recording and sold the CD was one Leo Raab.) I actually used to teach the dance, and could probably still do it if I had people to do it with, since it's a circle dance and one can't really do that alone.
* Always On My Mind, Elvis Presley. A pretty song but the lyrics aren't really grabbing me. (I have little patience with love songs about regretting not making time for your partner; after eight years with a woman who nearly dies every few months, I have strong feelings about valuing every second you get with them.)
* Amazing Grace. I have five different versions, apparently.
- One from a Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie concert sold under the album name Precious Friend; I think it's Arlo on the flute? I know Pete's breath control pretty well (what a sentence) and this sounds different. It's not my favorite rendition, too up-tempo and poppy, and Arlo just isn't quite as good at leading a singalong as Pete. (I mean, who is.)
- One from Johnny Cash's album Gospel Glory, which is exactly what you'd expect from a Johnny Cash cover of Amazing Grace and that's not a bad thing.
- One from a bagpipe album, Rob Crabtree: The Piper's Legacy, which is exactly what you would expect out of a bagpipe cover of Amazing Grace and that is a very good thing to me.
- One apparently from the soundtrack of the movie Gettysburg, which I did not remember I had. (I knew I had the credits song from the sequel, Gods and Generals, because it gives me geology feels -- it's complicated, okay -- but I seem to have acquired the Gettysburg soundtrack too.) It's a... bugle cover, maybe? Some kind of wind or brass instrument. I assume authentic Civil War instruments, knowing the movie. Not my favorite instrumental cover, because I do love me a bagpipe, but it's pretty.
- One of Pete Seeger leading a singalong, which I am very fond of.
* America the Beautiful. I have two different covers from some of those CDs of random patriotic songs that were everywhere after 9/11, credited in my files as "Brentwood" and "Columbia River Box". Brentwood is I think a lead violin and a strong backing ostinato? (I am so not good at identifying musical instruments by ear.) It spends most of the runtime wandering off into trills and variations, so it's not really my favorite. Columbia River Box manages to actually get through the entire verse melody twice before wandering off for the closing chorus.
* American Folk Sing Along, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, album Down on the Farm. I honestly love the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and need to get more of their work, they have so much on YouTube it's overwhelming. This track is a fun choral and orchestral medley of Old Smoky, Clementine, She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, Little Brown Jug, The Farmer In the Dell, Down In the Valley, The Blue-Tail Fly, and Skip to My Lou, which is certainly enough songs to live up to the grandiose title.
* American Patrol, Fingers Bennett: I do not think Fingers Bennett is a real musician. The only evidence of him online that I've ever found is in association with this CD, Down at the Saloon, which is one of those retitled records from an uncredited musician (I keep saying this, I should explain that I know this for sure about certain CDs because I was able to track down the original version on YouTube under its original attribution; the Rob Crabtree album with my bagpipe cover of Amazing Grace is one example, and Down at the Saloon comes from the same or a similar source). Anyway, the music is honkytonk instrumental arrangements of various American classic tunes; I am not otherwise familiar with American Patrol but it's a fun tune. Also, if anyone knows more about Fingers Bennett or whoever is actually responsible for this music, I'd love to find out.
* Amon Hen, Howard Shore. I keep stopping and listening to these LOTR soundtrack segments but I don't know that I'll want any of them on my phone. Except maybe Concerning Hobbits, that's a fun one.
* Amos Moses, Raab's Rhythm Repertoire. I don't know the dance that goes to this one, but it's a bop, a folk piece from Louisiana about a one-handed alligator hunter.
I think I'm going to call it for the night, looking down the list isn't a ton of stuff I'm excited about for a ways and my earbuds are going to die soon. We're down to about 116 hours left, that's progress of a sort? Jesus. How do I have so much music.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-22 07:33 am (UTC)I've got six versions assortedly by Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd plus or minus Peggy Seeger; Peter Bellamy; Louisa Jo Killen; and Keith Kendrick, if any of that helps narrow it down. Can probably find them on the internet if you want to compare.
A-Rovin' (Maid of Amsterdam), instrumental by an unknown band, from a CD called Wind in the Rigging which makes it very hard to google. This CD has a lot of my favorite instrumental chantey covers; I suspect it of being stolen and retitled like so many of the other uncredited CDs I've owned, but I've never tracked down the original source.
It looks like a real album and I am inclined to trust it because of the presence of David Coffin, big-name Gloucester-based chanteyman and mainstay of the Cambridge Revels whose repertoire of instruments includes the recorder.
Admiral Benbow, June Tabor. Sea chantey, female performer, some sort of mandolin accomplishment? I can't quite follow the lyrics, I'm not sure if it's her accent or the sound balancing or just an issue with her enunciation.
I know she recorded that one in 1980 with Martin Simpson on A Cut Above; she has a very distinct but an oddly hollow-timbred voice, so you may well be losing a lot to the ear.
I got nothing on Fingers Bennett or the Yertle polka.
[edit] I am curious if "Fingers Bennett" is the "Kenneth R. Bennett" who is the only other name I can find associated with that album, especially since it's a product of "KRB Music Companies," but I can't at the moment trace it further than that. The whole line looks rather uncredited and compile-y.