Songs Of The South/Songs Of The Sea

Norman Luboff Choir | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 23, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectables
• ASIN: B00000K2MF
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,875 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #93 in Music > Indie Music > Pop > Easy Listening

Track Listings

1. My Old Kentucky Home

2. I Must Walk That Lonesome Valley

3. Sweet Lorena

4. Salangadou

5. Nobody Knows The Trouble I'Ve Seen

6. Kemo Kimo

7. Deep River

8. Carry Me Back To Old Virginny

9. Tender Love

10. Down In The Valley

11. Swing Low Sweet Chariot

12. The Ballad Of Boll Weevil

13. Black Is The Color Of My True Love'S Hair

14. Un Deux Trois

15. Dixie

16. Homeward Bound

17. One More Day

18. Shenandoah

19. Rio Grande

20. Rollin' Home

See all 29 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love these Albums!, December 30, 1999

By 

R. J Metz (Blacksburg, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Songs Of The South/Songs Of The Sea (Audio CD)

My Grandmother has three records by the Norman Luboff Choir. Songs of the South, Songs of the Sea, Songs of the West. She has played them for me and I have had them memorized ever since I could talk. I still listen to them sometimes. The albums are kind of scratched due to old age, however I have copied them onto audiotapes so I could play them in the car. I have discovered that Songs of th Sea and Songs of the South are available on CD Format. Could you please encourage Columbia records to convert Songs of the West to CD?

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best version of "Dixie" in the world, December 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Songs Of The South/Songs Of The Sea (Audio CD)

OK, never heard of the Norman Luboff choir? Well, thanks to my dear old Mom, I have. When I was a kid, I listened to this choir's recording of Songs of the South. No choir or group does them better. The rendition of "Dixie" is sung as a hymn, the way it should be. No fast trumpet solos and Confederate flags here; just a heartfelt, haunting version of the song that's sure to please any Southerner. Check out the other great versions on this album, too: Kemo Kimo; Boll Weevil; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Un Deux Trois and a fine version of the politcally incorrect (and rightfully so) Carry Me Back to Old Virginny. Many of these renditions are slow, beautiful meldings of voices that really capture the imagination. This is a 5-star CD for anyone who touts their Southern roots.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, July 27, 2007

By 

B. Tupper (Ramona, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Songs Of The South/Songs Of The Sea (Audio CD)

For those who know this music from the LP days, it is enough to say that the remastering and transcription to CD are very well done. If anything, the sound is better than on the original LP releases.

For those to whom the music might be unfamiliar, a bit of description is in order.

These are rearrangements of old songs--both traditional and composed--including several well-known Stephen Foster numbers and some ancient traditional ballads and sea shanties. The Norman Luboff choir stands somewhat apart from the tradition of the great choirs of recording history, in that the arrangements are weighted very strongly toward the male voices. In many of the songs the female voices are completely absent, leaving a mens' choir. In others the female voices play a very minor role, serving only as understated accents to the overall harmonic structure. The result is a very smooth, liquid sound, even in the livelier numbers. Apart from that, the Luboff stuff is very much in the tradition of the Fred Waring chorale, the La Sierra Collegians under John T. Hamilton, and other masters of the choral art, although he makes frequent use of folk-type instruments in accompaniment, such as the harmonica. accordian and acoustic guitar--all of them presented with elegant simplicity. Luboff's harmonic structures are frequently more modern, sometimes even a little bit dissonant, without ever becoming unpleasant. Some of the chord progressions are quite unique and interesting in the context of traditional and folk music.

This release is a complete transcription of the two original LP releases of 1956 under the same titles. For those of us who owned, wore completely out, those recordings, this is a very welcome replacement. Of the various albums recorded by Luboff in that period, I liked Songs of the Sea least. Not that it is less well done. It is technically fully the equal of all the others. I just didn't like the songs as well. My favorite, I think the best work Luboff ever did, is Songs of the West. I enthusiastically concur with the other reviewers that that album MUST be re-issued. I hope the delay is in the spirit of seeking perfection in the remastering. The music deserves the very best that modern technology can offer.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to report that Luboff rehearsed his group on the campus of the White Memorial Hospital in East Los Angeles, where my wife was a student nurse and my sister worked in the medical records department. It was a wonderful privilege to be able to stick one's nose into the rehearsal room and watch the great musicianship of Norman Luboff as he coaxed such wonderful sounds out of his singers.