Your Favorite Performances Of Traditional Songs

[WordMan]

This is Son House singing John the Revelator.

This is how it is done. I can’t listen to this man without wanting to take my hat off, bow down and show some respect.

[Mixolydian]

Thanks for the wonderful responses so far…

Huey “Piano” Smith & The Clowns - Lil’ Liza Jane

[Maiira]

@janis_and_c0

Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair

This is the version against which I judge all other versions of this song.

Just about anything by The Weavers.

Johnny Cash’s version of Ghost Riders in the Sky.

I love folk songs.

[BrainGlutton]

@Cartoonacy

Oh, Suzanna (the Banjo Song) by the Big Three.

Yes, I know the arrangement sounds familiar. This came first.

Al Jolson does it better.

[muttering in room grows loud and angry; ominous thunder cracks]

Look, he’s singing it they way Stephen Foster wrote it (and all his other songs) to be sung: By a white man in blackface, dressed like a clown.

[Alley_Dweller]

Pentangle - Lyke Wake Dirge
I hadn’t thought of Pentangle in such a long time. Thanks for the reminder.

Mediaeval Baebes - Gaudete
This would be my entry in the traditional Christmas category.

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

Al Jolson does it better.

[muttering in room grows loud and angry; ominous thunder cracks]

Look, he’s singing it they way Stephen Foster wrote it (and all his other songs) to be sung: By a white man in blackface, dressed like a clown.

An interesting thing about Al Jolson:

Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer features the main character performing in blackface in a minstrel show as part of his journey to self-expression. Ironically, Jolson’s character can only express himself by putting on the mask of a black man. This was also semi-biographical, as Al Jolson really did perform in blackface and felt a special kinship with African-Americans. He actually helped a lot of blacks break into the music business, demanded that they receive equal treatment, and was famously the only white man allowed in the all-black nightclubs in Harlem.

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

Al Jolson does it better.

[muttering in room grows loud and angry; ominous thunder cracks]

Look, he’s singing it they way Stephen Foster wrote it (and all his other songs) to be sung: By a white man in blackface, dressed like a clown.

From the same film (Swanee River, 1940), here’s Jolson doing “Camptown Races” and “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River).”

[Tangent]

All of the traditional song covers on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[salinqmind]

Oh Shenandoah, by Randy Granger, on youtube.com. Sung acapella, and it just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in its beauty.

[TreacherousCretin]

Emerson, Lake & Palmer: “Jerusalem”

.

[Annie-Xmas]

Carly Simon & James Taylor’s Mockingbird

[brittekland]

Jeff Beck - Amazing Grace

[drbhoneydew]

Fairport Convention’s A Sailor’s Life. All the more remarkable for being done in a single take because Sandy Denny had the flu.

I won’t decide between Davy Graham’s or All About Eve’s versions of She Moved Through the Fair, they’re so radically different. (And for an OP bonus, the tune is in the Mixolydian mode :))

And does Nina Simone’s Sinnerman count?