Hard to believe another year has passed by and it's Christmas time again.
Last year I wrote Wishing you all a Soul-full Holiday
to share the holiday music I grew up with and inviting you to share your favorites.
This year is pretty much the same, but with a few more things to celebrate.
I'd like to start out by sharing the music of a woman I went to High School with.
Laura Nyro.
Both of us were born in 1947 and both of us grew up listening to R&B, do-wops, folk and jazz in New York City. She was from the Bronx, I was from Brooklyn and we all came together in a castle up on a hill in Manhattan.
For those of you not familiar with her, I think you may know many of the songs she wrote which were recorded by other artists.
Laura’s work draws from soul, jazz, blues, R&B, and folk-rooted music, along with a modern classical influence. Her songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Carmen McCrae, Suzanne Vega, Phoebe Snow, Roseane Cash, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Jane Siberry, Mongo Santamaria, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Chet Atkins, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, George Duke, Maynard Ferguson, Thelma Houston, Patti Larkin, The Roches, and many, many others. The prestigious Alvin Ailey Dance Company includes Laura’s music in their performance piece "Cry." And the Canadian Ballet has danced to "Emmie."
Born in New York on October 18, 1947, Laura was brought up on city life and summers spent in the lush greenery of the Northeast. She began playing music very early, and enjoyed a wide range of influences through her high school years at Manhattan’s Music and Art. Laura listened to the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s girl groups, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions, Mary Wells, Dusty Springfield, and the early Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs of Dionne Warwick, among many others. Laura read poetry and at home her mother played records by Leontyne Price and impressionist classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy and Persicetti.
Throughout high school Laura also listened to the protest music of Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, early Bob Dylan the Beatles and others. Laura always "adored" the music of Van Morrison. "I was always interested in the social consciousness of certain songs. My mother and grandfather were progressive thinkers, so I felt at home in the peace movement and the women's movement, and that has influenced my music."
The High School of Music and Art on the campus of City College was a hotbed of protest, a birthing place of innovation in the arts and music, and a racial and ethnic mix of students who enriched each others lives in a way that few High Schools in the city could do at that time.
So each Christmas I play a classic Christmas song by Laura Nyro in memory of that time, and of the students who all sang together, protested together and crossed racial and ethnic lines and borders to share the beauty of our poetry, our paintings and our music.
Laura's lyrics - though written in the 70's apply to where we are today. Christmas in My Soul was the last tune on her album Christmas and the Beads of Sweat, released in 1970.
Christmas in my Soul
Come young braves
Come young children
Come to the book of love with me
Respect your brothers and your sisters
Come to the book of love
I know it ain't easy
But we're gonna look for a better day
Come young braves
Come young children.
I love my country as it dies
In war and pain before my eyes
I walk the streets where disrespect has been
The sins of politics, the politics of sin
The heartlessness that darkens my soul
On Christmas.
Red and silver on the leaves
Fallen white snow runs softly through the trees
Madonnas weep for wars of hell
They blow out the candles and haunt Noel
The missing love that rings through the world
On Christmas.
Black panther brothers bound in jail
Chicago seven and the justice scale
Homeless Indian of Manhattan Isle
All God's sons have gone to trial
And all God's love is out of style
On Christmas.
Now the time has come to fight
laws in the book of love burn bright
people you must win for thee America
her dignity
for all the high court world to see
on christmas
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul.
Come young braves
Come young children
Christmas in my soul
Christmas
in my soul
Joy
to this world.
We still suffer in wars of hell. There are still thousands upon thousands bound in jail. We have Native Americans who still suffer in cold winters, homeless families of all colors without enough to eat.
Let us not forget that. On Christmas.
Please share the songs that you remember, or cherish, or play around this time of year.
This is your space.
We've got hot cider on the front porch, brownies (a la Toklas) and gingerbread cookies.
Let me open up with a few more favorites.
Aretha Franklin & Billy Preston - Oh, Holy Night
Please keep Aretha Franklin in your prayers, as she is gravely ill.
Gladys Knight "Let There Be Peace On Earth"
T'was The Night Before Christmas & Do You Hear What I Hear -Gladys Knight
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
Temptations - Silent Night
The Whispers - This Christmas
Luther Vandross -Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
"Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad" Jose Feliciano
But as we celebrate let us not forget:
Now the time has come to fight
laws in the book of love burn bright
people you must win for thee America
her dignity
for all the high court world to see
on christmas