Here's Gentleman JIM REEVES with his rendition
of MARY'S BOY CHILD. Are you listening, CJ?
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Thursday, 4 December 2014
7 comments:
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Kid, I definitely will be listening when I'm next on my laptop or phone but at this moment I'm using my tablet and for some reason I just see a grey box saying "this plug-in is not supported" - that happens with all your YouTube links on my tablet and some other blogs too. I love the Boney M version by the way and the Harry Belafonte one of course.
ReplyDeleteHarry Belafonte is probably the singer most associated with the song (to those of a certain age at least), but Jim's version isn't lacking any punch, in my view.
ReplyDeleteOK, I've just listened to it and it was really nice - I've never heard a bad version of this song actually. It's interesting how the versions are slightly different - for example Harry Belafonte sings "they found no place to born she child", for Boney M it's "bear her child" and Jim Reeves sings "lay the child" (there are several other differences). The Boney M version is the one I actually remember being No.1 and the timing is important for me because Boney M were No.1 at Christmas 1978 - my 13th birthday was in February 1979 and I consider childhood to be the pre-teen years so Xmas 1978 was my last childhood Christmas. And thinking back it seemed like that because in December 1978 we still brought games to school but only a year later in Dec '79 nobody brought games to school as we'd crossed the boundary into teenagehood and were too "grown up" for such things.
ReplyDeleteHarry Belafonte's version was the very first Christmas hit I ever remember, so it will always be my favourite version. He also had another very nice hit around that time, called " Island In The Sun ".
ReplyDeleteI remember Boney M's version when it was first in the charts too, Col. The only other song of theirs that I can recall is Brown Girl in the Ring.
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Although it's been years since I last heard Harry Belafonte's version, JP, I seem to remember it being just a bit too Jamaican-sounding - for my tastes anyway. I prefer the more traditional carol sound of Jim's version.
Kid, surely you remember Boney M's "Rivers of Babylon" - it was the song on the other side of Brown Girl In The Ring and it was No.1 for 5 weeks and was the 3rd biggest selling single of the '70s - inescapable in Summer '78. And what about "Rasputin" and "Ma Baker" (both reached No.2 in the charts). Ma Baker always reminds me of two sisters in my street, Louise and Mary-Lynne, who did a little dance routine to that song. John, I heard Island In The Sun on Radio 2 just a couple of months ago. I don't listen to Radio 2 much but I do listen to Michael Ball's show on Sunday evenings which is where I heard the song and what a nice song it is :)
ReplyDeleteNow that you've reminded me, Col, I do indeed remember them. Sometimes the ol' memory needs jogging.
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