The New Christy Minstrels' Greatest Hits

Album Review

The New Christy Minstrels' (NCM) debut album is one of the best efforts to have been born of the 1960s folk revival. Prior to the tenuous relationships and management difficulties that left NCM a musical anachronism, the ten-member troupe began as the brainchild of Randy Sparks (vocals/guitar), who ultimately combined a number of smaller ensembles to blend together into a larger, singularly functioning unit. However daunting the task might have sounded, it was no match for the imposing results. Sparks joined forces with his wife Jackie Miller (banjo/vocal), Los Angeles-based Billy Cudmore (banjo/vocals), Terry Wadsworth (guitar/vocals), Jerry Yester, Dolan Ellis and Art Podell. He then added the contents of two already established combos — the Fairmount Singers and the Inn Group.When the Fairmounts had to attend to a prior planned engagement, the remaining aggregate reorganized in time to cut the self-titled New Christy Minstrels (1962). The long-player eventually took home the "Best Performance By A Chorus" Grammy in 1962. The dozen-plus tracks hosted familiar traditional Americana tunes, such as Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," the "Cotton Picker's Song," "Oh! Shenandoah" and "In the Pines." The original works proved to be on par with the classics, especially Wadsworth's lovely "Don't Cry, Suzanne" and his equally inspired "Wellinbrook Well." Sparks' immense talent as an instrumentalist, vocalist, as well as arranger is evident on the children's song "Whistle" and the energetic "Springfield Fair." Quite literally right before they became repeat guests on the weekly Andy Williams Show, the group suffered the first of what would become many reconfigurations. One of Sparks' undeniable gifts was his ability to attract new talent, which became NCM's calling-card for the rest of their performance life. Collectors' Choice Music gathered New Christy Minstrels and their follow-up, the live New Christy Minstrels in Person on to compact disc with a pair of otherwise available sides, "Susan Jane" and "Dance Me a Jig."