You Are My Sunshine - Christmas Playlist Podcast

The Sun Is Rising / Scare Away The Dark (TOTR 223/224)

#223 “The Sun is Rising”

Rev. Edward Clayburn – Wrong Way To Celebrate Christmas

African Children’s Choir – Kumbaya

Taj Mahal & the Blind Boys of Alabama – The Sun is Rising

Yusuf – You Are My Sunshine

Pentatonix - White Winter Hymnal

Jim Henry - The Tree

Mark Kozelek - O Christmas Tree

The Lower Lights - I Saw Three Ships

Kemper Crabb - Down In Yon Forest

Sufjan Stevens - Angels We Have Heard On High

Michael W. Smith - The Darkest Midnight featuring Bono

Emmylou Harris – There’s A Light

Loreena McKennitt - Good King Wenceslas

Revels Chorus - Wonderful Counselor

Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers - Christ Was Born On Christmas Morn

Rotary Connection - Silent Night Chant

Anthony Hamilton - Little Drummer Boy

Anthony Hamilton - Away In A Manger

Gregory Porter - Go Tell It On The Mountain / Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Jesse Colin Young - Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella

Great Big Sea - Seven Joys Of Mary

Elizabeth Mitchell - Children, Go Where I Send Thee

Johnnyswim - O Come All Ye FaithfulWe

Punch Brothers - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Beta Radio - O Holy Night

Folk Angel - Joy To The World

#224 “Scare Away The Dark”

Beck - Morning

The New Basement Tapes - Kansas City

Ray LaMontagne – She’s the One

Foy Vance - You And I (featuring Bonnie Raitt)

Needtobreathe - Difference Maker

Angaleena Presley - American Middle Class

Against Me! - Two Coffins

Roadkill Ghost Choir - Womb

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - All You Can Carry

Delta Spirit - Take Shelter

Cold War Kids - Hotel Anywhere

TV On The Radio - Right Now

Ben & Ellen Harper - A House Is A Home

Jack White - Alone In My Home

Robert Ellis - Chemical Plant

Sun Kil Moon - I Love My Dad

Run River North - Growing Up

Johnnyswim - Live While We’re Young

Yusuf - Dying to Live

the Collection - The Art of Dying

St. Paul – I’m Torn Up

Natalie Merchant - Go Down Moses

Sturgill Simpson - A Little Light

Mike Farris - This Little Light

Passenger - Scare Away The Dark

U2 - Song For Someone (Acoustic) 

Before My Time (TOTR 222)

The Open Mind – Before My Time

Hot Tuna – New Song For The Morning

New Riders of the Purple Sage – Glendale Train

13th Floor Elevators – Dust

Quicksilver Messenger Service – Hope

Mountain Bus – Sundance

Farm Band – Let It Ride - 1972

Closer To The Ground – Closer To The Ground

Jo Jo Gunne – Flying Home

Batdorf & Rodney – Long Way From Heaven

Mother Earth – Deliver Me

Humble Pie – Alabama 69

Allman Brothers Band – Melissa

Brian Auger &Julie Tippetts – Freedom Highway

Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson

James Taylor – Fire And Rain

Norman Greenbaum – Spirit In The Sky

Harpers Bizarre – If We Ever Needed The Lord Before

Dobie Gray – Drift Away

Gallery – I Believe In Music

Rhinoceros – It’s a Groovy World

Dr. Hook &The Medicine Show – Sing Me A Rainbo

Sailcat – On The Brighter Side of It All

Brewer & Shipley – The Light

Fool's Wisdom (TOTR 221)

Randy Matthews – Holy Band

Mustard Seed – Shepherd's Song

Malcolm & Alwyn – Fool’s Wisdom

The Eternal Savings & Trust Company – Karin

Cephas – Show Me The Way

Canaan – Jesus Revolution

Arthur Blessit – SoulSession (Excerpt)

The Joyful Noise – High On Jesus

The Four Corners Gospel Experience – Jesus Rocks

Andraé Crouch and the Disciples – Satisfied

Michael Omartian – Take Me Down

Dust – Gone

Paul Clark – Which One Are You

Resurrection Band – Better Way

Earthen Vessel – Let Jesus Bring You Back

Spirit & Understanding – It’s Jesus That They Need

Master’s Lantern – Amen, Amen

Holy Ghost Reception Committee – Hey Lord

Azitis – From This Place

Jack Miffleton, Skipp Sanders, & The Group – Revolutionary Peace  
Agape  – Rejoice

California Earthquake – Let There Be Light

Richie Furay – Dance a Little Light

Song of Solomon/Pete Giardina – Dance Song

Wilson McKinley – One in the Spirit

Barry McGuire – Love Is

God Unlimited – Joy  

In The Garden (TOTR 220)

Elbow – The Take Off And Landing Of Everything

Oasis – Up In The Sky

Paul McCartney – Heart Of The Country

The Beatles – Good Day Sunshine

Donovan – Sun

Christie Hennessy – Mr. Sunshine’s On My Side

Vashti Bunyan – Come Wind Come Rain

The Incredible String Band – The Water Song

Pentangle – Light Flight

The Albion Band – Rainbow Over The Hill

Clannad – Theme From Harry’s Game

Moving Hearts – May Morning Dew

Planxty – Well Below the Valley

Johnny Duhan – In The Garden

The Chieftains – Down In The Willow Garden

Van Morrison – In The Garden

Mumford & Sons – Thistle & Weeds

The Lost Brothers – Those Ancient Eyes

Fionn Regan – Hey Rabbit

Loudest Whisper – Lord Have Mercy

Bread, Love & Dreams – He Who Knows All

Simple Kid – A Song Of Stone

Boy George – King of Everything

U2 – An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart

Gown of Grief: The Collection’s courageous collection of songs of mourning & celebration

No abundant bright bloom of flowers on the CD cover or obscure Latin in the title or gentle dance of cursive font describing the song list, nothing can hide that this is not your light-and-breezy summer release of cruising-with-the-top-down jams, but rather, a full-blown concept album of folk hymns about the art of dying.

The Art of Dying (officially Ars Moriendi) represents a brave and risky move for the make-it or break-it breakout album of an up-and-coming band. The Collection’s courageous collection of orchestral pop hymns chart and curate the grieving heart of a gifted songwriter and the community of bandmates and fans that surround him.

At a time when the flame of the alternative folk explosion still burns bright despite much backlash, this North Carolina ensemble shows up as the son of Mumford and Sons, married-to-Edward Sharpe’s second cousin, with too many members to pack the tiny stages of clubs and bars, with a sound fit for mountaintop vistas and songs as mystic visions that pierce the veil between life and death.

Despite the heavy earnestness of the entire package, it’s exactly the grief-support-group that my ears need, and I imagine a rendering of fragile faith and hope against hope that our world craves. The Collection manage to sing about Jesus and Thomas and the prodigal son without getting pushy, dancing on the fringe of explicit CCM, exploring sacred-meets-secular crossover paths and gritty crossroads that groups like Needtobreathe, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, and Gungor have already traveled.

Death remains that earthly finality to render our denial mute—and our religious musings about whether it represents cosmic reunion, bodily resurrection, or eternal rest are powerless when we admit that the mysterious premonitions of the “heaven is real” crowd are but passing glimpses and not bulletproof facts. The Christians that remain relevant in our world have invested in the Kingdom here, now, and all around us, and they don’t shove tracts that guarantee afterlife fantasies in our faces on the same streetcorners where tramps and hobos sleep and sometimes starve.

This album is everything but a tract, and a cosmic creation consciousness drips from every track as David Wimbish invites listeners on the single “Gown of Green” to “Stop looking at the ground, start looking at the leaves” because “up among the dirt and rust is where the kingdom breathes.”

This kingdom doesn’t suckle at the unenlightened nipple of mindless obedience to stiff doctrine, yet instead it feeds on seeds and weeds and breeds wild green freedom for the dangerous disciples daring to “sow the earth with diligence and love.” Anthems for an anarchic 21^st-century faith do not come with pat power-point slides and tidy handouts and bullet-point programs for salvation.

Wimbish moans with melody and groans with gravity what we were already thinking: “a cross hangs around your neck so loose/and though it brings you life, sometimes it feels just like a noose/but god is not disappointed in you/but love and beauty haunt you in your dreams.” The Collection sip from the overflowing cup of spiritual freedom, and one taste of this new wine might make bland another taste of the lukewarm life-numbing churchianity still making its way around the land.

As my daddy departed this earth this past May, I must confess many attempts to review this album have been interrupted by uncontrollable fits of weeping. The solemn-yet-exuberant trance invoked by these songs does not easily evoke translation as a regular record review. These ruminations about death inspire a rant against death: I want to dance and scream and just cry some more. There is an emptiness on the other side of emptiness where it can feel pointless to carry on, because, we’re all just going to die anyways, right?

How quickly gratitude can give way to apathy when you suffer from the lazy grief of which C.S. Lewis wrote an entire book. Wimbish wonders if he even has the “right” to sing his songs in this world filled with wrong. I feel the same way about writing this review, not to mention the countless poems and sermons and social media statuses I continue to crank out, about a laundry list of worldly hopes and woes. Is anyone even listening? Does anyone even care?

Did you ever wonder if Jesus ever asked himself if anyone was listening to his crazy stitched quilt of parables and poems? Was anyone even nourished from yet another dinner party, another feast of bread and wine? Up-and-coming musical artists like The Collection don’t make much money to speak of and often go into debt instead. Sadly, there are probably several thousands of souls who would love to hear these songs but may not be plugged into the blogs and indie radio and social scenes that would make it possible. 

Yet—The Collection carries on anyhow, and those of us who get to wrap ourselves in these sonic poems and potent songs are inevitably changed and charged to share our reactions to these prophetic tunes. These tunes bring soaring melodies, mythic crescendos, orchestral aches, sponsored by a rambling circus-tent revival of songcrafters touring the country for just a few weeks in a rented van, before many return to dayjobs as educators and artists and theologians and recording engineers and foodies and what have you.

The Collection is a collection of friends I could not have dreamed into being. They hold open the door to heaven for just a few milliseconds, and the view is foggy with the limits of our vision, but the songs are bigger than they are, bigger than we are, and they are a form of poetry that even poetry cannot touch. Somehow, I hear angels, and my dead Daddy has a new body and is dancing with me.

For tour dates & more information about how to get your own copy of Ars Moriendi, please visit:
www.thecollectionband.com

Photo by Stephanie Berbec Photography  http://stephanieberbec.com/

Take Me To Church (TOTR 219)

Sweet Honey In The Rock – We All Everyone Of Us

(Part one – happy)

Sam Cooke – Happy In Love

Pharrell Williams - Happy

The Rolling Stones - Happy

The Lonely Forest - Warm_Happy

Kings of Leon - Happy Alone

The Turtles - Happy Together

R.E.M – Shiny Happy People

The Grateful Dead – Eyes of the World

(Part two – take me to church)

Ben Harper – Church on Time

The Flying Burrito Bros – Down In The Churchyard

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Church Without A Name

Love Song – Little Country Church

Lyle Lovett – Church

Hozier – Take Me to Church

The Raphaels – Life Is A Church

The Waterboys – Church Not Made With Hands

Gungor – Church Bells

(Part 3 – home)

Rodney Crowell – Hungry for Home.

Johnnyswim – Home

John Mayer – On The Way Home

Dawes – My Way Back Home

Rising Appalachia – Calling Me Home

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home

Billy Bragg – Sing Their Souls Back Home

Delta Spirit – Home

Band Of Horses – On My Way Back Home

The Collection – The Art of Dying

David Crowder Band –Oh, My God I’m Coming Home

Earthen Vessel – Coming Home

Distant Lands (TOTR 218)

Hurray for the Riff Raff - Forever Is Just A Day

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Stranger to My Happiness

Mount Moriah - Miracle Temple Holiness

Jill Andrews - The Mirror

Jenny Lewis - Godspeed

Nickel Creek - This Side

Willie Watson - Midnight Special

Br’er Rabbit - Distant Lands

the Collection - The Art of Dying

Ray LaMontagne - Airwaves

Lord Huron - I Will Be Back One Day

The Districts - Funeral Beds

Leagues - Haunted

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors - A Place to Lay My Head

Johnnyswim - Live While We’re Young

The Replacements - Kiss Me on the Bus

Against Me! - The Ocean

Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day

The Grateful Dead - St. Stephen

Jack White - Temporary Ground

Band Of Horses - Everything’s Gonna Be Undone (Live Acoustic)

Beck - Waking Light

Foy Vance - Guiding Light featuring Ed Sheeran

Changes (TOTR 217)

SNCC Freedom Singers - Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom

The Campbell Brothers - A Change Is Gonna Come

Brothers & Sisters - The Times They Are a Changin      

John Mayer - Waiting On The World To Change

Moon Taxi - Change

David Bowie - Changes

Ben & Ellen Harper - A House Is A Home

Cat Stevens - Tuesday’s Dead
Indigo Girls - Yoke

The Collection - The Gown of Green

Run River North - Banner

Circle Of Hope Audio Art - Make a Way

Rev. Roger Anthony Yolanda Mapes - We Are Angels

Against Me! - True Trans Soul Rebel

The Cult- She Sells Sanctuary

Origene - Sanctuary

Oasis Worship - Lord Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary

Enigma - The Cross Of Changes

Scissor Sisters - Inevitable

Bronski Beat - I Feel Love

Troy Bronsink - Love

Jars of Clay - Inland      

Nina Simone - New World Coming

Rory Cooney - Canticle of the Turning

Peter Donnelly - Love With Me

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus - Irish Blessing

Stand By Me (TOTR 216 for Kenneth R. Smith)

Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Can’t See Land

Band Of Horses – The Funeral (Live Acoustic)

Ryan Adams – Peaceful Valley

Billy Bragg & Wilco – Ain’ta Gonna Grieve

Coldplay – Midnight

U2 – Kite

My Morning Jacket – Look at You

Grateful Dead – Cosmic Charlie

John Denver – All Of My Memories

Harry Chapin – Cat’s In The Cradle

Cat Stevens – Father And Son

Simon and Garfunkel – The Boxer

Ben E. King – Stand By Me

Bill Withers – Lean On Me

Ben & Ellen Harper – How Could We Not Believe

Mary Gauthier – Mercy Now

Mike Farris – Precious Lord, Take My Hand

Crowder – Ain’t No Grave

Delta Rae – Dance In The Graveyards

Dr. John – When The Saints Go Marching In - (featuring Mavis Staples)

Jimmy Cliff – I Can See Clearly Now

Sweet Honey In The Rock – Breaths

Judy Collins – Battle Hymn Of The Republic (John Browns Body)

Higher (TOTR 215)

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Let’s Get High

Richie Havens – High Flyin' Bird

Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Rosalee

Grateful Dead – Wharf Rat

The Black Angels – I Hear Colors (Chromaesthesia)

13th Floor Elevators – (It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue

Umphrey’s McGee – ANDY’S LAST BEER

Amos Lee – Lowdown Life

Patrick Sky – Nectar Of God

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell – Chase the Feeling

Holly Williams – Drinkin’

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Whiskey Legs

Robert Ellis – Bottle Of Wine

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Codeine

Jason Isbell – Cover Me Up

Frank Turner – Recovery

Johnny Cash – I Came to Believe

Humming House – When The Dawn Becomes The Day

Earthen Vessel – Get High

Gungor – Higher

Imperials – Jesus Made Me Higher

Saturday (TOTR 214)

Neulore – Shadow Of A Man

Johnny Cash – God’s Gonna Cut You Down

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – Nothing But The Water

Delta Rae – Bottom Of The River

Emmylou Harris – All My Tears

Gary Louris – Gonna Be A Darkness

The Wright Brothers – Blood On My Name

The Liturgists – Saturday (Feat. Rachel Held Evans)

The Liturgists – We Believe- (Feat. Michael Gungor)

The Collection – Lazarus

Troy Bronsink – Rescue Us All Here

Sam Cooke – Were You There

Ashley Cleveland – Revive Us Again

Brother John Rydgren – Portrait of Christ

Randy Matthews – Son of Dust (1973)-Didn’t He

Bob Dylan – In The Garden

Needtobreathe – Garden

Needtobreathe – Multiplied

Needtobreathe – Brother

Jars of Clay – What Wondrous Love

Mike Farris – Can’t No Grave Hold My Body Down

The Grateful Dead – Throwing Stones

Rev. Roger Anthony Yolanda Mapes – Sweet Sweet Spirit (feat. Rev. Chanda Rule)

Brokedown Palace: American Music, American Land (TOTR 213)

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme (Part I/Acknowledgement)

The Impressions – People Get Ready

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

Morphine – Kerouac

Eddie Vedder – Society

Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard – Big Sur

Bruce Springsteen – American Land

Violent Femmes – American Music

R.E.M – I Believe

Humming House – Gasoline

The Dirty Guv’nahs – The Country

Janis Joplin – Kozmic Blues

Jim Morrison – Living In One Country

Jimi Hendrix – The Star Spangled Banner

The Velvet Underground – Heroin

Nirvana – All Apologies

The White Stripes – One More Cup Of Coffee

Bob Dylan – Ballad of a Thin Man

Rodriguez – This Is Not A Song, It’s An Outburst/Or, The Establishment Blues

Pete Seeger – Pretty Boy Floyd

Saul Williams – Give Blood [Phantom Dancehall Mix]

Rising Appalachia – Occupy

Patti Smith – Capitol Letter (from the Catching Fire soundtrack)

Grateful Dead – Brokedown Palace

For What It’s Worth (TOTR 212)

 ** the history of my fandom continues with a hippy dippy trippy flippy mix fix**

The Fugs – No More Slavery

Phil Ochs – I Ain’t Marching Anymore

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son

Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth

Country Joe & The Fish – Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine

The Stooges – 1969

MC5 – Ramblin’ Rose

Sly & The Family Stone – Everyday People

The Staple Singers – We The People

The Byrds – Eight Miles High

Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit

Jefferson Airplane – Embryonic Journey

Jimi Hendrix Experience – Third Stone From The Sun

The Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning

Nick Drake – Northern Sky

Van Morrison – Ballerina

Crosby, Stills, & Nash – Helplessly Hoping

Janis Joplin – Me And Bobby McGee

Joni Mitchell – Woodstock

Canned Heat – Going Up The Country

Allman Brothers Band – Revival

The Band – The Weight

Arlo Guthrie – Coming into Los Angeles

Eagles – Doolin-Dalton

The Holy Modal Rounders – Hot Corn, Cold Corn

Grateful Dead – Uncle John’s Band

Gram Parsons – Love Hurts

Like A Song (TOTR 211)

Originally aired in 2014.

Edited post in 2023.

Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark

U2 – Like a Song

Big Country – Fields Of Fire

Mike Peters – The Stand

The Waterboys – Spirit

Simple Minds – Sanctify Yourself

Lone Justice – Soap, Soup And Salvation

R.E.M. – Harborcoat

Guadalcanal Diary – Fire From Heaven

Echo & the Bunnymen – Seven Seas

the The – This is the Day

The Cure – In Between Days

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now

Billy Bragg – The World Turned Upside Down

The Clash – Clampdown

Peter Gabriel – Biko

Violent Femmes – No Killing

Minutemen – The Price Of Paradise

The Replacements – Here Comes a Regular

Suzanne Vega – Undertow

10,000 Maniacs – Back O’ The Moon

Lone Justice - Wheels 

Cocteau Twins – Lorelei

This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren

By the time I reached high school, I knew I wanted to write and began working for the school paper, the Southfield JAY (our team mascot being the Blue Jays). For the duration of my high school career, I would write about sports, music, and social issues, including peace, civil rights, and ill-fated endorsement of the Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro ticket for President in 1984. 

My older friends Scott and Joe had programs on the school radio station WSHJ, so soon I joined them with “Music For Thinking People” and “United Underground,” airing weekly and respectively during my junior and senior years. I like to joke that “sex, drugs, and rock n roll” ended my athletic career, lettering in track and cross-country, and it’s not that far from the truth. 

By 11th grade year, I had adjusted the birth date on my driver’s license from 1967 to 1962, so I could get into clubs that had an age restriction. Using my radio and journalism passions as justification, I even went downtown to shows on school nights. I learned how to telephone record labels and managers and get free stuff or get on the guestlist, with my staff status on the JAY and WSHJ as the only credentials I needed.  

As an up-and-coming journalist, I read Rolling Stone magazine religiously. Soon, I would discover fanzines. I was weaning myself off classic rock and getting heavily into punk, new wave, and those bands or artists that would end up under the wide umbrella of “alternative.” In Rolling Stone around 1983, an article about the Irish band U2 was called “Blessed Are The Peacemakers.” As a devout Christian, the reference to the Beatitudes immediately grabbed my eye. In this story, a singer called Bono spoke of his allegiance to the ideals of the 60s and his disdain for the superficial sides of pop music. He exuded an enthusiasm for life that I shared, and he located his anti-apartheid, anti-nuke stances in his Christian faith, such as I would soon discover, with biblical allusions dripping from his lyrics, all the while resisting the “Christian rock” pigeonhole of groups like Petra or Rez Band.

By then, I was already passionate about John Lennon and the Beatles. Lennon’s death in 1980 had hurt me deeply, so nothing could mean more than seeing a passionate and charismatic voice like this coming from my generation. I was in my late teens and the members of U2 were in their early twenties.  On the album War, Bono declares in “Like A Song”: 

Angry words won’t stop the fight

Two wrongs won’t make it right

A new heart is what I need

Oh God make it bleed

In U2, I had found the voice of my generation.

My enthusiasm for U2 quickly turned me on to the authentic anthem bands from across the pond, bands like The Alarm, Big Country, Waterboys, and Simple Minds. The politics of people over profit informed the likes of Billy Bragg and the clash. Back in the USA, Bruce Springsteen was a more sophisticated John Cougar. Down in the South, there was a jangle rock scene, from fiery bar band Guadalcanal Diary to the Athens, Georgia legends R.E.M., who would be the American peers to U2 in terms of widespread popularity, creative expressions, and progressive messages. 

Refugees from punk provided the antidote to cheesy radio rock, and the likes of Minutemen, Replacements, and Violent Femmes filled my ears. 

Finally I found my first genuine fanboy crushes on Maria McKee of Lone Justice and Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs. I kept my intentions all about the music and was thrilled to meet them, interview them, write about them, and travel all around the country to see them play. As my newspaper and fanzine articles started to land in the hands of other bands and labels, backstage access was a surprisingly easy hustle. I ended up meeting almost every artist I saw. 

Many of the artists I saw were also activists against war and racism, commitments I shared. Surviving the Reagan years meant meeting like minded folks, attending lots of protests, and having a great record collection. The transition from the high school years to the college experience was so bumpy and wild and included drugs and dropping out. While I loved all my adventures, there were close calls and dark detours. These amazing soundtracks kept me moderately sane and always inspired.  

Listen to a playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0mscTD1TsSYsGN2z2xGb3Y?si=35997d0188684be5