Season 3 Episode 5-Ghosts of Christmas Past

Submitted without voiceover, here is yet another insight into Bob Bain’s life.

Today’s podcast is a recording made by Bob at his home in 1965 for one of the epic Clark Family Christmas Eve parties. This cherished memory starts with Bob accompanying the Bain and Henderson kids on his composition “Relatives”, then Aunt Jean leads the Friley, Terry,  Branson and Schwartz kids through “Frosted Windowpanes”, “Nan’s Carol” (sung to the tune of Girl From Ipanema), and the legendary “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” (the Ting-A-Ling song). The recording paused, then picked up midway through the Clark Sisters incomparable version of “The Christmas Song” (regrettably, a noisy mic cable distracts here, but the performance is worth listening past that) and “Winter Wonderland”. Then we hear Pop Clark and Aunt Marguerite perform “Second Hand Rose” and “When It’s Circus Day Back Home”. Note Pop’s spot-on Fanny Brice accent, how cleverly he adapted the lyric gender, and his circus rap—pretty hip for a guy from North Dakota. Marguerite’s chops as accompanist are first rate.  The music extravaganza continues with Pop and Mom Terry in the remarkably anti-war song “Not Me” and Pop runs through a couple of risqué jokes that would’ve played very well in vaudeville. These are the voices and songs of people now in the past, presented here for us to remember.