Talkin’ Colin, Shirley and Gracie Christmas Blues
From today’s Willamette Week:
“After a short stint across the pond with his band The Decemberists, Colin Meloy is back in town to work on a cover EP of traditional tunes by Britain’s “first lady of folk”, Shirley Collins. The EP, which will be available during the songwriter’s January solo tour, follows the Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey EP available on his last solo tour.”
Um, Shirley Collins? Never heard of her, but Billy Bragg says she is “no doubt one of England’s greatest cultural treasures.” Hopefully this means that she sings like Joanna Newsom, only with a cockney accent.
In the spirit of cockney rebels, I present Gracie Fields’ Christmas Party, a favorite holiday 78rpm that really has very little to do with Christmas (or Mssr. Meloy) at all. But what a great title for a record, and now if you’ll excuse me I must go pour myself a hot toddy.
Gracie Fields’ Christmas Party (side 1)
Gracie Fields’ Christmas Party (side 2)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 11:18 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
[...] — And, in a related story, Scott Stereogum has tracked down one of the original songs that Colin has covered on his latest tour-only EP (Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins). Shirley herself sings this one, called “Charlie”. Thanks Scott - I’d been dying to hear what she sounds like! [...]