Christmas is really coming!! Even Peace Cat is getting caught up in the excitement ("What do you think of my hat?", he asks).
4 days left of our Advent Calendar celebrating Laura Nyro - today track is 'Beads of Sweat' from album no.4, "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat". Laura worked with an amazing roster of musicians over the years, and here it's almost like a duet between her voice and Duane Allman's guitar (Alice Coltrane and many other eminent musicians feature on the same album). It's another track full of shifts and surprises!
Bonus extra! Where to stop? This track came on after, also from Christmas and the Beads of Sweat. The piano, the horns, the vocals, the tempo changes - it just sounds so good!!!
Bonus extra extra! It's Winter Solstice night! I was introduced to this lovely poem recently and it really should be read aloud tonight - give it a try! :)
The Shortest Day (Susan Cooper)
So the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow‐white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us ‐ listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
Peace Cat's hat is the business. Hats are a great invention.
Loving the Laura tracks thank you Phil.
Laura's second song has me thinking about cruising Ionia in high school
I’m in a mood for the Allman Brothers now. We read The Shortest Day after the game of hide-and-seek here was over. I like stanzas that begin with “so” and “and.” It makes me feel like I’m walking into a story in progress. It’s my style. High school English teacher busted me for it though. I really enjoyed your reading. I just listened to it again, followed by the Halsway Carol and your brrr, which sounded very American :)
Welcome Yule ! :) Thankyou for the words
And dearly love their friends :)
What a great title for an album! Where to stop - is that even
necessary!? I don't know quite what comment to make at the mo, other than I enjoyed them .. will listen further...( which I've already done of course!)