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The spiritual music of the Shakers. as might be expected, is notable for its simplicity and straightforward nature...anyone with an interest in American religious music will find the material both interesting and moving.
Highly recommended.
--Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
From LP
10 LP Box Set: The Shaker Heritage (1961)
to CD
2-CD Set: Let Zion Move (1999)
In Memory of Charles "Bud" Thompson (1922-2021)
Originally known as "The Singing Troubadour" (above picture) when he toured across the USA in the 1950s, Charles (Bud) Thompson was the first curator and museum founder at Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire and was a soloist who sang Shaker music on
The Shaker Heritage LP albums and Let Zion Move CD set.
To read his obituary -- click hereThe most important recorded legacy of the United Society of Believers (better known as The Shakers) began in 1960. According to Darryl Thompson, his father asked popular disc jockey Bill Randle to supervise and record a series of public seminars given by the Shaker sisters at Canterbury. The lectures had been taped the previous year by Cressy Goodwin and Carl Bell but were not of sufficient archival quality. So Bill Randle offered to tape all the lectures and produce a set of 10 LP albums titled, The Shaker Heritage. The narrators for the Shaker music LP were Sister Mildred Barker from Sabbathday Lake, Maine and Sister Lillian Phelps from Canterbury.
In addition to the singing of Shaker hymns and songs on the CDs, there are also some piano-organ duets featuring Sister Aida Elam (pianist) and Sister Lillian Phelps (organist) shown in this photograph:
There was also interviews with Sister R. Mildred Barker from Sabbathday Lake, Maine.
The album producer was Bill Randle (1923-2004), an influential Cleveland radio broadcaster, that TIME Magazine called him the top disc jockey in the U.S.A. in the 1950s.
In January of 1956, Randle was the disc jockey who introduced Elvis Presley for the first time on national television on"Stage Show." That night Elvis sang "Shake, Rattle and Roll/ Flip, Flop and Fly" and "I Got A Woman."
Five years later, In 1961, Bill Randle produced a massive 10 LP box set titled The Shaker Heritage. The cover art for the LP set (shown above) was by Tom Wilson, later known for his Ziggy comic strip.
Also, Randle was responsible for suggesting the condensed version of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's recording of "Battle Hymn of the Republic,"a Grammy Award winner for 1959. For more about this recording -- click here.
Read more about him in the new edition of this book:
To get your copy of
The Bill Randle Chronicles
with two bonus audio clips
click on the button below.
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send your email address so the book
and audio clips
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This historic 10 record set had a cover designed by Tom Wilson, famous for his Ziggy cartoons in many newspapers.The record set was never released commercially and the 250 copies were distributed to libraries and museums for their archives. It has been out-of-print for many years and became a much sought after collector's item.
In the late 1990s, Bill Nowlin of Rounder Records contacted Shaker music scholar, Roger Hall, to ask him to edit and write the background notes for the music from the music on the LP set
re-issued with this new title...
Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers (1999)
This 2-CD set includes 40 Shaker spirituals sung and played by Shaker sisters from Canterbury, New Hampshire and Sabbathday Lake, Maine on "The Shaker Heritage" LP set.
Also featured are a few Shaker songs and hymns sung by Charles Thompson, then museum curator at Canterbury Shaker Village.The second CD has a history of Shaker music narrated by Sister Mildred Barker and Sister Lillian Phelps. The interviews were done in 1960-61 by Bill Randle for The Shaker Heritage LP set.
Additional interviews were conducted for the CD set by Shaker music scholar, Roger Lee Hall. The 1972 interviews were with Eldress Bertha Lindsay and Sister Lillian Phelps at Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire. In 1980, he interviewed Sister R. Mildred Barker at the Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine.
These are a few of Shaker spirituals on this 2-CD set, all sung by Shaker women singers:
"Let Zion Move"
"Redeeming Love"
"Let My Name Be Recorded"
"I See The Light Before Me"
"Precious Gospel Kindred"
(all above titles by Mary Ann Gillespie)
The 2-CD set (Rounder Records 0471/72, 1999) includes an attractive 72 page illustrated booklet designed by Susan Marsh, with examples of Shaker music and the words to all 40 Shaker spirituals, background notes, plus a bibliography and discography all prepared by the respected Shaker music scholar, Roger Lee Hall --
Listen to the Shakers speaking about and singing their music
on these two CDs:
"Blended Together" - Interview with the Shakers
(AMRC 0007)
"Gentle Words" - A Shaker Music Sampler
(AMRC 0016)
Are you looking for arrangements to perform
with a soloist or chorus in church, school or college?
Click this link for Roger Lee Hall's
Presented by Roger Hall
Are you interested in scheduling an entertaining music program
for your school, college, church, historical society,
museum, or other organization?For a listing, click on this link to the
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