The Carol of the Star

I don’t usually have a blog based on music, much less an individual song, but I think this one deserves it.  I’ve actually shared the song before.  That was five years ago, and the post was about the music that my dad – Bob Landry – had directed many moons ago at the Northside gym in Jennings.  Our family moved to Jennings, Louisiana, in the early 60s.  At first he taught at Elton, but then he moved to Northside Junior High in Jennings.  I don’t really remember the two years he taught at Elton, but I remember those early years at the Northside gym.

I have lots of memories from the band programs there.  I wasn’t even in school yet, but my siblings and I would go to the summer band program every summer.  I think it was a way to give my mom a break from taking care of the six of us.  We would go to that old un-air-conditioned gym in the heat of the summer and think nothing of it.  It wasn’t just a gym.  There were aisles of schoolrooms on either side of it.  We would go to a classroom, take out our ukuleles (guitars for the older kids), sit in our seats, and sing and play the songs shown with the overhead projector as the fan oscillated back and forth across our slightly sweaty faces.  It was heaven!

We’d sing songs like “Down in the Valley” that only had a few chords.  At first you really had to concentrate to get the fingerings right for that C or G chord and try to sing along as you strummed the ukulele to the right rhythm.  You would improve and then it was easier to play songs like “This Land Is Your Land” that had more chords.  We even learned to sing a little Spanish with “Cuando Calienta El Sol.”  We learned about our brave military heroes from the song “The Ballad of the Green Beret.”  Those songs all evoke such memories when I hear them now. 

But the song that evokes the most memories is the song “The Carol of the Star.”  The chorus at Northside would sing that every year at Christmastime at the gathering for the end of the fall semester.  My dad made recordings of some of those concerts on an old reel-to-reel recorder.  He kept them in the kitchen closet for many years.  I’m sure the old 1959 Harry Simone original recording of the song was in there as well.  It was such a fun song to sing.  There were lots of harmonies and echoes, and the older boys got to sing the best “Bum pa dum pa dum, bum pum” part.  It’s a great Christmas song that you don’t ever hear anywhere.

This recording was made fifteen years ago.  My brother Al recorded me singing the first verse over the phone when he was in Chicago and I was in North Carolina.  He also recorded himself and my sister Jamie singing the second and third verses.  My sister Karen, and my mom and dad sang some harmonies for him before he worked his magic and combined them all together.  I don’t know how he got Jamie’s husband Allen to sing the “Bum pa dum” part.  I’ve never heard him sing!  Al did multiply it and do some editing on it.  It’s a shame that my brother Rob wasn’t in on it.

The song is very moving to me.  I like to listen to it with my ear buds in, so there is no external distraction.  When I start the song, I can hear myself singing, and then Karen joins in right beside me.  Like in olden days.  As other voices join in, I really do get transported to those early days of singing this song.  It’s like my parents are right behind me again making sure we all know the words and the melody of the song.  Sometimes it seems like Jodie was still around singing along with us, but she had died long before the recordings were made.  Her voice was similar to mom’s and my sisters’ voices.  It’s like we are all together again.

I’m sure that many of my dad’s students from back in the day have a similar experience when they hear this song.  I’m including the old recording from 1966 at Northside.  I think they did a great job for junior high school students.  When I hear it, I can picture that old gym so clearly.  When I posted this song previously, I did get comments about it doing the same for other students from then.  It’s not too soon to share it again.

I also have to share a photo from an old Christmas in the past.  Some people won’t look at a post unless there is an interesting photo to look at.  My interesting photo is an old family photo from the Christmas of 1974.  It’s a photo Rob sent to me a while back.  He had his new Minolta camera with a timer on it.  Everyone can be in the photo!  From left to right (and top to bottom) are Rob, Al, Van, Betty (mom), Jamie, Dennis Franklin (Jodie’s first husband), Jodie, Karen, and Bob.

I hope that was interesting enough.  I think the song is more than interesting, but that’s me.  Hopefully others will find a connection to it.