Lyrics below
Merry Christmas!
This is not the last songs-of-the day posting from me in this year’s series. There will be one more tomorrow. But for now, Christmas day can be rather frantic. Perhaps today you would appreciate some nice soothing piano music.
The songs:
1. Joy Boogie Chuck Leavell (2008)2. Lonely Shepherd Matt Andersen (2011)
Joy Boogie is Chuck Leavell’s interpretation of the melody Antioch written in 1824 by American music educator and prolific hymn writer and compiler Lowell Mason for Isaac Watts’ poem Joy to the Earth, the title and lyrics of which soon evolved into Joy to the World.
The tune for the familiar song, probably the most striking of all the Christmas carols, is frequently misattributed to George Frederick Handel. That stems from the fact that Mason did not credit himself with its authorship when he included it in a hymnbook he edited. Although the melody was written specifically as a setting for Watts’ poem, in keeping with the fashion at that time Mason gave the tune its own name – Antioch.
There are indeed some superficial resemblances to brief passages in Handel’s great Oratorio The Messiah, and there was also a cryptic attribution in Mason’s hymnbook “arranged from Handel.” But some think that the misattribution was mainly based on a belief that such a great and stirring melody must have come from the great composer, and not from the part-time American hymnist Lowell Mason (whose “day job” was as a banker.)
Mason was a big fan of Handel, but Christmas music historian William Studwell describes the links to his work as being “very weak and tenuous,” and other music scholars agree. They now are in agreement that it was Mason himself who wrote the arrangement (but not necessarily the melody) that we universally associate with this enduring Christmas classic. But the myth that Handel wrote it hasn’t gone away and most hymn books still attribute it to him.
[Update: But that isn’t the end of it; Mason didn’t write the melody either. He probably got from an anonymously-written hymn tune called Comfort that began popping up in English hymn books in the early 1830s. Although Mason made a few tweaks to the melody it would be more accurate to says that the tune comes from the unknown composer who wrote Comfort. For more information about the history of this tune I suggest this article.]
The musician Chuck Leavell, who performs this keyboard interpretation of Joy to the World (Antioch) is most well-known for having been a member of the Allman Brothers Band in the 1970s, and since 1983 for being the musical director and principal touring keyboardist for The Rolling Stones. He improvised this interpretation of the song for a personal Christmas-greeting CD that he sent to friends, family and colleagues. In 1998 he included it in his Christmas CD What’s in the Bag? But I got it from a used Christmas compilation album called Holiday Harmonies issued by Helzberg Diamonds that I picked up for 75ȼ .
Lonely Shepherd is from New Brunswick singer-songwriter Matt Andersen’s 2011 album Spirit of Christmas. It isn’t easy to find Matt’s biographical information on his website. Here is his Wikipedia entry.
Offhand, I cannot find my copy of the album so I don’t know what its liner notes say about this song. (I had the track copied onto my computer in my candidates files.) But Andersen probably learned it from Toronto-based singer-songwriter Chris Whiteley’s recording of it on his 2002 album Santa’s Got Mojo.
From the huge international Discogs database about recordings I learned that John Sheard is the keyboard player. He is best known as having been the music director for Stuart Mclean’s Vinyl Cafe from 1997-2016. I have his two Christmas albums but his piano playing on those doesn’t sound anything like this.
I found the lyrics on this site:
Lonely Shepherd by Chris WhiteleyWell I'm just a lonely shepherd and I live out with my flockOh how I miss my baby, sleeping on the cold hard rocksYeah I'm just a lonely shepherd, but I've got a tale to tellIf you want to hear my story, won't you listen to me wellIt was late one winter evenin' no I never will forgetI heard this band of Angels wailin’, and they scared me half to deathWell they told me not to worry, so I did the best I couldSaid they had a breaking story, and they said the news was goodThen we saw a bright star shinin’ – and we heard the angels singThen we went to see a baby – who was greater than a kingYea we found him in a stable, he was sleepin’ with the cowsStill some wise men came to see Him, and before him they did bowYes I'm just a humble shepherd, never learned to read and writeBut I got some education from what I saw that nightWell I'm glad I got to see it , and I swear my stories trueNow like a real good shepherd, I will play my harp for you
