Tuesday, October 23, 2012

As a sort of parting gift to you to get you through my possible impending absence

...here are Andrea Bocelli and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “The Lord’s Prayer” (4:25).

This particular piece of music was written by a man named Albert Hay Malotte (1895 - 1964), about whom I knew absolutely nothing until I read about him in that ever-changing fount of all knowledge, or not, Wikipedia.

Here is an excerpt:

“Malotte composed a number of film scores, including mostly uncredited music for animations from the Disney studios. Although two movies for which he composed scores won best Short Subject Academy Awards (Ferdinand the Bull in 1939 and The Ugly Duckling in 1940), he is best remembered for a setting of the Lord's Prayer. Written in 1935, it was recorded by the baritone John Charles Thomas, and remained highly popular for use as a solo in churches and at weddings in the US for some decades.”

My six degrees of separation, or two, or whatever, from both Albert Hay Malotte and John Charles Thomas is the fact that when I was a child living in a third-floor apartment in a house in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, around 1946 or 1947, I listened to that recording made by John Charles Thomas. It was one of two 78-rpm recordings that I played over and over on a huge wind-up, hand-cranked Victrola rather like this one:


The other recording I listened to over and over in those days was not sung by John Charles Thomas and it was not composed by Albert Hay Malotte. It was a country/western/hillbilly song called “I'm Goin’ Back to Whur I Come From” that included the immortal line, “whur the mockin’ bird is singin’ in the lilac bush” and here it is (2:51).

Parts of this post are ridiculous and parts of this post are sublime, and I’ll leave it to you to decide which are which.

6 comments:

  1. Carson Robison's rendition of "I'm Going Back to Whur I Came From" has much more spiritual significance for me than the first little ditty which I simply couldn't understand.

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  2. Thank you. I very much enjoyed the most sublime (first) offering. It was a bit startling to see that Andreas has graying temples, but his voice is as beautiful as ever. As to the MTC - wonderful.

    Don't be gone too long. :)

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  3. i first heard andreas on pbs and of course i felt like it was i who discovered him first and the other guy could remain undiscovered as far as i am concerned<>><i wonder what willie nelson one of my other favorites would sound like singing i.m goin back whur i came from

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  4. shocking possible impending abcess

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  5. Nothing could possibly make up for your impending absence except your promise to stay. Yet, it might be of some comfort if we, your regular readers, could come here to your blog and talk about you in your absence. It's even possible that someone might think of something nice to say--Putz for example, or else Pat, or maybe Yorkie, even your's truly. One never knows.

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  6. P.S. to Pat. Bocelli is 54 years old.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...