Mixtape for grannie
August 3, 2011 6:20 PM
I'd like to make a mixtape for my grandma, and I'm looking for suggestions. I think I'm looking for Victorian-era songs and AME church songs that were popular in the 1920s-1950s.
I'm not at all sure what I'm looking for, since my grandmother's getting a bit forgetful now that she's 100 years old, but I love to hear her sing along when I play an old song she loves.
A few songs that I've got so far that she really loves are:
Beautiful Dreamer
I'll Walk With God
The Holy City
I mentioned Victorian-era songs and AME religious songs, but more specifically, I'm looking for popular music that might have been played on the radio in the colonial Caribbean (British Guiana, specifically) in the 20s-50s. Religious-themed music is good, but anything pretty conservative works too. I don't care about the artist or date of recording, though, just the song itself. I want to make it clear, though, that I'm not looking for reggae or Guyanese folk music; that's not her thing.
For music after the 50s, my mom remembers a few songs here and there, but she's not really a music lover, and anyway she was listening to rock'n'roll and calypso, not church standards. So, suggestions for post 50s are welcome, but my goal is to surprise her with something she hasn't heard in half a century, something from her heyday.
I'm not at all sure what I'm looking for, since my grandmother's getting a bit forgetful now that she's 100 years old, but I love to hear her sing along when I play an old song she loves.
A few songs that I've got so far that she really loves are:
Beautiful Dreamer
I'll Walk With God
The Holy City
I mentioned Victorian-era songs and AME religious songs, but more specifically, I'm looking for popular music that might have been played on the radio in the colonial Caribbean (British Guiana, specifically) in the 20s-50s. Religious-themed music is good, but anything pretty conservative works too. I don't care about the artist or date of recording, though, just the song itself. I want to make it clear, though, that I'm not looking for reggae or Guyanese folk music; that's not her thing.
For music after the 50s, my mom remembers a few songs here and there, but she's not really a music lover, and anyway she was listening to rock'n'roll and calypso, not church standards. So, suggestions for post 50s are welcome, but my goal is to surprise her with something she hasn't heard in half a century, something from her heyday.
*Dwelling in Beulah Land
posted by whimsicalnymph at 6:27 PM on August 3, 2011
posted by whimsicalnymph at 6:27 PM on August 3, 2011
Not church music but how about music by crooners? According to Spotify there's even a 100 essential Crooner Hits album.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:39 PM on August 3, 2011
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:39 PM on August 3, 2011
She would have heard and loved Mahalia Jackson; this is an old favorite of mine. Her music makes me feel like I've been gathered up in loving arms and am being healed and comforted. Agnosticism notwithstanding, I definitely believe in Miss Mahalia Jackson.
posted by Anitanola at 6:51 PM on August 3, 2011
posted by Anitanola at 6:51 PM on August 3, 2011
Thanks so far! I'll try Beulah Land, but I know my grannie doesn't know His Eye is on the Sparrow (or Mahalia Jackson in general, though she's one of my faves), and I just wanted to clarify that British culture was a greater influence on Guyanese culture at this time than American culture, so I'm not exactly looking for American gospel music either.
I know it's confusing because I mentioned the AME church; I have a book with some early hymns of theirs that she likes, but on reflection, I think many of those must be British songs. Also, many American gospel artists did cover these songs as well (for example, Mahalia does an amazing version of The Holy City), so just because it's a version by an American gospel artist doesn't exclude it.
posted by lesli212 at 7:53 PM on August 3, 2011
I know it's confusing because I mentioned the AME church; I have a book with some early hymns of theirs that she likes, but on reflection, I think many of those must be British songs. Also, many American gospel artists did cover these songs as well (for example, Mahalia does an amazing version of The Holy City), so just because it's a version by an American gospel artist doesn't exclude it.
posted by lesli212 at 7:53 PM on August 3, 2011
"Lift Every Voice and Sing"
and probably anything by the Mills Brothers.
posted by 4ster at 7:56 PM on August 3, 2011
and probably anything by the Mills Brothers.
posted by 4ster at 7:56 PM on August 3, 2011
You might poke around the playlist archive of Sinner's Crossroads, a great WFMU gospel show featuring "scratchy vanity 45s, pilfered field recordings, muddy off-the-radio sounds, homemade congregational tapes and vintage commercial gospel throw-downs; a little preachin', a little salvation, a little audio tomfoolery."
posted by mark7570 at 8:00 PM on August 3, 2011
posted by mark7570 at 8:00 PM on August 3, 2011
Gosh, I've got about 1,000 tracks of pre-70's Caribbean music and now that I go looking, I find that absolutely nothing is Guyanese (that I know of). I gather from Wikipedia, though, that Trinidadian calypso got a fair bit of radio play in British Guiana, to which end I'd recommend these pre-50's VA collections. I'll bet she heard a lot of these songs:
Calypso Pioneers 1912-1937
Calypso Carnival 1936-1941
Calypsos from Trinidad of the 1930's
Fall of Man: Calypsos on the Human Condition 1935-1941
Roosevelt in Trinidad (1933-1939)
Those last two are particularly nicely remastered.
The Bahamas are a long way from Guyana, but Joseph Spence… man, I really don't know what commonalities you'd find between Bahamian popular and gospel music and the music of your grandmother's younger days, but Spence was an incredible fingerstyle guitarist (and a nigh-unintelligible vocalist), and of what was recorded of him, many tracks are timeless. Joseph Spence: Good Morning Mr. Walker is a good disc for spirituals.
There's also Bahamas 1935: Chanteys & Anthems, for old-timey spiritual and popular song, but the sound quality isn't the best, and again, while Anglophone, they're a long way from the northern shores of South America.
posted by mumkin at 8:40 PM on August 3, 2011
Calypso Pioneers 1912-1937
Calypso Carnival 1936-1941
Calypsos from Trinidad of the 1930's
Fall of Man: Calypsos on the Human Condition 1935-1941
Roosevelt in Trinidad (1933-1939)
Those last two are particularly nicely remastered.
The Bahamas are a long way from Guyana, but Joseph Spence… man, I really don't know what commonalities you'd find between Bahamian popular and gospel music and the music of your grandmother's younger days, but Spence was an incredible fingerstyle guitarist (and a nigh-unintelligible vocalist), and of what was recorded of him, many tracks are timeless. Joseph Spence: Good Morning Mr. Walker is a good disc for spirituals.
There's also Bahamas 1935: Chanteys & Anthems, for old-timey spiritual and popular song, but the sound quality isn't the best, and again, while Anglophone, they're a long way from the northern shores of South America.
posted by mumkin at 8:40 PM on August 3, 2011
Ok, so I'm going to try clarifying again.
My grannie did not listen to these genres:
- No American gospel
- No American folk (Black or White)
- No Calypso
- No Reggae
- No Caribbean folk
- Nothing that seemed like a person of African descent had anything to do with its creation.
Ok, the last one seems kind of harsh, but it's a very blunt way of getting across what I'm not looking for. I can't get fully into the racial politics of the Caribbean, but hey, nothing to lose at this point, and it might help answerers understand more fully what I'm looking for, so here's a quick rundown:
My ancestors identified as "Colored", not "Black" - there was a distinction and they would have been scandalized by anyone who dared discount the great British blood they had flowing through their veins (And they totally were scandalized because my grandmother's dad was 100% Black.) Except for my mom, no one in my family even knows how to talk like this. My family all speak standard English all the time. My grandma used to freak out when my mom came home dancing to popular 50s calypso. One of my grannie's aunts, who was very close in age to my grandmother, would give gifts to my mom & her cousins except one, who was "the dark one". These are not people who listened to music identified to them as "Negro" or "Caribbean". (Though, ironically, many of these songs became popular among Black Americans).
So I hope that helps with the answering! I know it's confusingly outside of everyone's wheelhouse because my family's not American or what's thought of as "typically" Caribbean.
posted by lesli212 at 10:21 PM on August 3, 2011
My grannie did not listen to these genres:
- No American gospel
- No American folk (Black or White)
- No Calypso
- No Reggae
- No Caribbean folk
- Nothing that seemed like a person of African descent had anything to do with its creation.
Ok, the last one seems kind of harsh, but it's a very blunt way of getting across what I'm not looking for. I can't get fully into the racial politics of the Caribbean, but hey, nothing to lose at this point, and it might help answerers understand more fully what I'm looking for, so here's a quick rundown:
My ancestors identified as "Colored", not "Black" - there was a distinction and they would have been scandalized by anyone who dared discount the great British blood they had flowing through their veins (And they totally were scandalized because my grandmother's dad was 100% Black.) Except for my mom, no one in my family even knows how to talk like this. My family all speak standard English all the time. My grandma used to freak out when my mom came home dancing to popular 50s calypso. One of my grannie's aunts, who was very close in age to my grandmother, would give gifts to my mom & her cousins except one, who was "the dark one". These are not people who listened to music identified to them as "Negro" or "Caribbean". (Though, ironically, many of these songs became popular among Black Americans).
So I hope that helps with the answering! I know it's confusingly outside of everyone's wheelhouse because my family's not American or what's thought of as "typically" Caribbean.
posted by lesli212 at 10:21 PM on August 3, 2011
Ah. Perhaps popular crooner Al Bowlly, then. He was Bing Crosby before there was a Bing Crosby. There are a lot of his recordings at archive.org, but you probably know him best for Midnight, the Stars, and You. While he grew up in South Africa, spent a fair bit of his early career performing around the Empire, and his parents were of Greek and Lebanese background, I believe that his public persona was that of a purely white British subject. Of course there's some African-American jazz influence that inevitably informs the popular music in the 20's and beyond, but I don't know how much that was acknowledged at the time.
posted by mumkin at 11:47 PM on August 3, 2011
posted by mumkin at 11:47 PM on August 3, 2011
This is an intriguingly difficult and specific question! I hope you'll share the final line-up once you finish putting the tape together.
I second esmerelda_jenkins suggestion to pore through the Internet Archive holdings. Two other general sources for early recordings are the UC Santa Barbara Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project (which can be browsed by genre, country of origin, etc. here) and the Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection from Syracuse University (which can be browsed by song here). A lot of the material from these sources is probably earlier than what you're looking for (though your grandma might well remember some of the songs anyway!) but based on what you've linked here, it seems like some of it might work for you.
Some specific suggestions:
Where They Never say Goodbye - Homer Rodeheaver and chorus (1926)
Come thou fount of ev'ry blessing - Metropolitan Quartet (1922)
Only a Step to Jesus - Fred East and Lewis James (1920)
Lead, Kindly Light - Hughes Macklin (1915)
Also, a little poking around brought me to this "under construction" (but still informative) site about the history of radio broadcasting in Guyana. Perhaps the guy who runs the site (who seems to have worked for a Guyanese radio station at some point) can help you with your specific desire to find "popular music that might have been played on the radio in the colonial Caribbean" back then.
posted by bubukaba at 12:29 AM on August 4, 2011
I second esmerelda_jenkins suggestion to pore through the Internet Archive holdings. Two other general sources for early recordings are the UC Santa Barbara Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project (which can be browsed by genre, country of origin, etc. here) and the Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection from Syracuse University (which can be browsed by song here). A lot of the material from these sources is probably earlier than what you're looking for (though your grandma might well remember some of the songs anyway!) but based on what you've linked here, it seems like some of it might work for you.
Some specific suggestions:
Where They Never say Goodbye - Homer Rodeheaver and chorus (1926)
Come thou fount of ev'ry blessing - Metropolitan Quartet (1922)
Only a Step to Jesus - Fred East and Lewis James (1920)
Lead, Kindly Light - Hughes Macklin (1915)
Also, a little poking around brought me to this "under construction" (but still informative) site about the history of radio broadcasting in Guyana. Perhaps the guy who runs the site (who seems to have worked for a Guyanese radio station at some point) can help you with your specific desire to find "popular music that might have been played on the radio in the colonial Caribbean" back then.
posted by bubukaba at 12:29 AM on August 4, 2011
Thanks bubukaba, that's definitely along the lines I'm looking for. And that radio broadcasting page is really cool. Funnily enough, one of my relatives listed on there, but I never knew he was on the radio; I will have to ask his widow if she has any radio stories to send into the website.
posted by lesli212 at 12:57 AM on August 4, 2011
posted by lesli212 at 12:57 AM on August 4, 2011
Based on your criteria (which includes Bing Crosby) how about the British wartime forces favourite Vera Lynn: We'll Meet Again and The White Cliffs of Dover
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:09 AM on August 4, 2011
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:09 AM on August 4, 2011
Meant also say. . . and because of its British colonial history. . .
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:14 AM on August 4, 2011
posted by Mister Bijou at 4:14 AM on August 4, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 6:26 PM on August 3, 2011