How about a little Southern Gospel? You know, the kind you don't hear too much of anymore. This set seems to really fit that bill, and there's an instrumental version of Jingle Bells that is really more than worth the price of admission. I wasn't able to nail this down with a specific date, but based on the personnel listed on the sleeve, I'm saying it's around '78 or '79. You can't go wrong by downloading
The Hopper Brothers & Connie-
Christmas With The Hopper Brothers & Connie (Hopper/Sing TSRC-746350, Stereo). Shame about that generic cover though.
1. O Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem
2. Joy To The World
3. O Come All Ye Faithful
4. Away In A Manger
5. Silent Night/Luke II
6. O Holy Night
7. Silver Bells
8. White Christmas
9. Jingle Bells-Instrumental
10. They Stood In Silent Prayer
MEGA
Sounds like something I might like.
ReplyDeletei found 1971 as the date for this in the hopper brothers entry at wikipedia. the date made sense to me after hearing that electric sitar in the jingle bells instrumental. it was making inroads into country music arrangements around that time (think anne murray’s “snowbird”, bj thomas’ “hooked on a feeling”) in an attempt to achieve a more “relevant” sound for the younger set, hopefully with resulting crossover sales. i guess this one didn’t cross.
ReplyDeletearound about the same time, johnny cash had a successful crossover with a song about a man who named his son “sue”. but at least he didn’t name him “claude hopper”, as happened with some folks we know.
Thank you! I'm curious about that Jingle Bells now, and They Stood in Silent Prayer is always a nice one to find more versions of.
ReplyDeleteErnie-love this so much! I'll take more southern gospel!
ReplyDelete