Happy Easter 2022!! Eddie Brandt, Jerome Hines, Meadowlarks, Cincinnati Baptist College Quartet

 

Twelve Easter selections--six egg-cellent novelties, followed by six outstanding religious numbers.  The novelties commence with Eddie Brandt (see Eddie's Wikipedia page) and His Hollywood Hicks performing Easter Bunny Polka, the vocals by Eddie and his first wife, Ruthie James. Then three more from this cheapest-of-the-cheap budget label, Irene Records (part of the JEB/TunePAC group), including a nicely done sound-alike of Peter Cottontail (as Peter Cotton Tail).  Then it's on to the Peter Pan (Synthetic Plastics Co.) versions of Bunny Hop and the title tune from a 1934 Disney Silly Symphonies short, Funny Little Bunnies.  

I'm not sure how Eddie Brandt and George (Goodnight My Love) Motola got away with writing a song (Easter Bunny Polka) about a certain, um, cartoon wabbit and his inept pursuer, but it appears that they did.  I'd think that Mel Blanc, at least, would have been annoyed.  But this is the Irene label, so in any lawsuit, the litigants might have collected... what?  Thirty bucks?

Jerome Hines, the born-again Metropolitan Opera bass who gave Salvation Army concerts, follows our humorous helpings with superb performances of How Great Thou Art and The Old Rugged Cross, recorded for Word Records in 1965.  The Cincinnati Baptist Quartet (thanks, Diane!) offer up a lively version of Lewis E. Jones' 1899 gem, There Is Power in the Blood, and there are excellent choral renditions of He Lives and Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.  The concert closes with the Church of the Nazarene Male Quartet (from the Showers of Blessing radio show) singing Victory in Jesus. a very famous gospel song whose melody is quite close to an earlier Charles Gabriel hymn, Pentecostal Power.  However, from approximately 1870 to, oh, the 1940s, gospel songbooks were being produced by the hundreds, and, given that circumstance, melodic overlap between any two songs was well within the realm of probability.  You might even call it inevitable.

Happy Easter!  Link follows:

DOWNLOAD: Easter 2022

Peter Cotton Tail--Meadowlarks

Old Rugged Cross--Mac McFarland

Easter Parade--Eddie Brandy and His Hollywood Hicks, V: Ruthie James

Easter Bunny Polka (Brandt-Motola)--Same, V: Eddie Brandt, Ruthie James

Bunny Hop--Peter Pan Orch. and Singers, Dir. by Vicky Kasen, 1955

Funny Little Bunnies--The Cricketts, Feat. "Hoppy" the Bunny, Peter Pan Orch.

Power in the Blood--The Cincinnati Baptist College Quartet, prob. 1971

How Great Thou Art--Jerome Hines, Arr. and Conducted by Kurt Kaiser, 1965

The Old Rugged Cross--Same

He Lives (Alfred H. Ackley)--Unknown choir, Word Records

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus--The Billy Graham Crusade Choir, Dir. by Cliff Barrows, 1962

Victory in Jesus (Bartlett)--Church of the Nazarene Male Quartet

Lee