Prompted by a lyrical snippet posted last night by SDA commenter John Begley, our Saturday night selection will be a performance of the opening song from Brendan Behan’s 1954 play The Quare Fellow. Backed by the vocals of his fellow Dubliners (from left to right) Barney McKenna, John Sheahan, and Jim McCann, here’s the late Luke Kelly belting out a bracing version of The Auld Triangle.
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The Parting Glass is a traditional Irish/Scottish song dating back to at least the early 1600s. Some believe the song is about a traveler saying a fond farewell to friends, others hear the kind words of a dying man; I lean towards the latter interpretation, but here’s a friendly debate on the matter.
No matter how you interpret it, it’s a kind, warm-hearted song, suitable for toasts. From a recording of a live performance, here’s the late Liam Clancy’s fine version of The Parting Glass. (Lyrics here.)
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The Tarrants are Britain’s oldest couple. Ralph, 107, a former RAF corporal and steelworker, and his wife Phyllis, who is considerably younger at 101, have been married for 77 years now; Phyllis says “Our secret is getting on with each other, a good diet, exercise, avoiding cigarettes – and a tot of whisky each night.”
Seems to be working fine. Here they are having a short chat with a reporter from ITN News.
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Tonight’s entertainment en route to the Tips comes in the form of some freestyle improvisational trumpeting: here’s Hollywood film extra Hrundi V. Bakshi, played by Peter Sellers, making the absolute most of his limited screen time.
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In tonight’s amusement country music great George Jones, backed by the harmony vocals of Georgie Riddle, performs his first number one hit, a tune written by flamboyant Texan disc jockey/singer J.P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper. From 1959, here’s Jones singing White Lightning. Don’t try this at home.
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Tonight’s amusement is a nostalgic look back at some British television news coverage of the Poll Tax Riots.
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, accompanied by English Pianist Gerald Moore, sings F. Schubert’s Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen (“Litany for the Feast of All Souls”), with lyrics by German poet Johann Georg Jacobi.
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In tonight’s amusement Czech entertainers Ivan Mládek and Banjo Band perform Jožin z bažin (“Joey the Swamp Thing”).
The song is catchy, but the dancing of Mládek’s bearded sidekick Ivo Pešák is world class.
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips, the late Lorne Greene, surely one of the more serious-sounding Canadian actors of all time, shows off his talents as a singer.
Greene began his career as a radio news reader:

The CBC gave him the nickname “The Voice of Canada”; however, his role in delivering distressing war news in sonorous tones following Canada’s entry into World War II in 1939 caused many listeners to call him “The Voice of Doom.”

Right to the end, he never lost that distinctive sound: here he is singing the theme song from Bonanza.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a performance of a few tunes that were played in the 16th and 17th century during masques:

A masque was a spectacle performed at court or at the manor of a member of the nobility; its purpose was to glorify the court or a particular aristocrat. The masque included diverse artistic elements at different stages in its development but invariably included choreographed dances by masked performers; members of the nobility were often participants.

Here are Markus Wuersch and Peter Solomon (bios under the video) creating a remarkably orchestral sound with just an organ and one trumpet as they play a selection of early English Masque Dances in a church in Switzerland.

In tonight’s entertainment American arranger/musician Herbie Hancock teams up with British vocalist Corinne Bailey Rae for a fine interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s River.
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In the early 1960s, one particular building in New York City was a remarkable, all-in-one engine room of popular music:

The Brill Building…was a classic model of vertical integration. There you could write a song or make the rounds of publishers until someone bought it. Then you could go to another floor and get a quick arrangement and lead sheet for $10, get some copies made at the duplication office, book an hour at a demo studio, hire some of the musicians and singers that hung around, and finally cut a demo of the song. Then you could take it around the building to the record companies, publishers, artist’s managers or even the artists themselves. If you made a deal there were radio promoters available to sell the record.

Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Carole King, and Neil Sedaka are just a few of the many songwriters who worked in there before going on to become performers and recording artists in their own right. Tonight’s selection features another performer who got her start in the Brill Building: from the 1973 album The First Songs, here’s Laura Nyro singing And When I Die.
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Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips features some exciting footage from the 2008 Beard and Moustache Championships, held in the small Bavarian town of Eging am See.
The beard: Nature’s way of saying “back off, ladies!”
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In tonight’s selection, suitable for a Thanksgiving weekend, Libera sings John Rutter’s choral adaptation of the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.
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In tonight’s amusement, from act IV of Giuseppe Verdi’s 1887 Opera Otello, Maria Callas, in the role of Desdemona, sings a lovely version of (Verdi’s) Ave Maria.
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Tonight’s amusement, suitable for a Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends, sees Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea and friends gathered together to sing Ian Tyson’s timeless classic Someday Soon.
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Get out those coins and tape them to your tonearm: here’s Canadian singer Sandy Selsie going out on A Date With Loneliness.
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In tonight’s amusement a perky Leslie Gore reminds us that – to paraphrase Dorothy Parker – life is a laughing-gas-filled cotton candy tour bus sailing through a world of Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.
And kittens. And baby panda bears.
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In tonight’s amusement, lovely images of the boreal forests of Suomi (the Finnish word for “Finland”) are set to music from Jean Sibelius’ 1899 symphonic work Finlandia.
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips, an environmentally-conscious woman named Emily rewrites the lyrics to a familiar tune in the hopes that it might inspire people. Or something. I don’t know. Anyway, here’s her updated version of Blackbird.
You’re welcome.
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