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Nat King Cole Christmas Music Videos. Christmas Song, O Tannenbaum, Little Town of Bethlehem, O Holy Night.

Celtic Woman / Chloe Agnew - "O Holy Night"

Rock-music lore is rife with stories of bands sealing themselves up in an expensive commercial recording studio for days, weeks, or months, refusing to reenter civilian life until armed with a masterpiece destined to be heard for generations. Today, that scenario sounds more like an ancient fable. Major recording centers such as London; Los Angeles; New York; and Nashville, Tenn., are losing the studios that made them famous due to shrinking budgets at the big labels and the growing sophistication of home-
recording technology. Now musicians can plug directly into their laptops and record digitally with greater ease than ever. Software...

Yesterday YouTube opened to the public their newest Beta, the YouTube "Feather" service. Feather is a slightly stripped down version of YouTube for those who have low bandwidth and/ or connection issues. Feather stills gives you the YouTube "experience", that is, you can still watch and listen to all of the same videos. The difference is that HQ/HD won't be available, and comments and other "fluff stuff" are limited or removed. The loading and playing of the videos is faster and smoother, I can attest to that.

Piano Wreckage at Ithaca College Bethany Stotts, December 16, 2009 The Ithacan Online reported on Monday that person(s) had vandalized more than 60 pianos in college’s practice rooms over the weekend. And this wasn’t just scratches, it was violent vandalism: More than 60 pianos were damaged Saturday night in the first floor practice rooms in the Whalen School of Music… Sophomore Andrew Thomson, a composition and instrumental major, said he went into the first floor of the Whalen Center to retrieve some equipment and found damaged equipment in all of the practice rooms. “Two or three [pianos] were flipped completely...

Soundtrack albums are the hidden pleasures of pop. Composed and performed to accompany moving images, they're emotional enhancers. This dramatic quality, coupled with the depth of sound-field in full cinema reproduction, ensures that many soundtracks stand apart from their parent films as a listening experience.

Here we go...another year end list. Lambchop Billy Joe Shaver Jon Langford/Pine Valley Cosmonauts Bad Livers Peter Holsapple/Chris Stamey Buddy Miller (with Robert Plant guesting on several songs)Okkervil River Steve Martin and the Stone Canyon Rangers (yes, that Steve Martin)Marshall CrenshawRosie Flores

With Christmas less than 2 weeks away I thought it would be nice for us to share our favorite performance of Christmas songs. This is one my mine, Charlotte Church singing Oh Come,All Ye Faithful. I highly recommend her Christmas album, "Dream A Dream" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4H2DswtluM&feature=related

For Garth Brooks, Retirement Ends Friday Night Garth Brooks officially emerges from retirement Friday night. LAS VEGAS (December 11, 2009)--Garth Brooks' retirement ends when he sings his first note Friday night at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas. It’s the first of a handful of weekends that he'll be performing each year for as many as five years. The weekends are selected based on his three daughters' school and sports schedules. Brooks says these acoustic shows will be different each night. Sometimes he'll have guest performers with him, including his wife, Trisha Yearwood and sometimes it will be...

They came, they conquered... they were never heard from again. After reaching the Hot 100's Top 10 with their very first singles, none of these acts managed to crack the Top 25 for the rest of the decade. But hey, four minutes of fame is better than nothing. The one-hitmakers on this list have been ranked by how high their big song climbed on the chart compared to how far down the tally their subsequent highest-charting effort peaked. NEW YORK (Billboard) – They came, they conquered ... they were never heard from again. After reaching the Hot 100's Top 10...

Benedictus XVIJoseph Ratzinger  Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music - The Musical Offering in MP3 The Musical Offering A selection of sacred and classical music in Mp3 played by teachers and students of Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music

Two years ago, the USCCB released a document of revised guidelines for liturgical music titled "Sing to the Mountains" -- er, "Lord." In its 88 mostly tepid pages are found a meditation on the scriptural and theological foundations for the use of music in worship, notes particular to the celebration of special rites within the Mass, and handy tips for ordained and lay liturgical ministers, such as the suggestion that cantors "possess the ability for singing and a facility in correct pronunciation and diction."   And, as with so many products of committee, its prescriptions perform a two-step waltz:...

Bob Keane, who founded the West Coast independent label Del-Fi Records in the 1950s and is best known for discovering and recording rock legend Ritchie Valens, has died. He was 87. Keane, who survived non- Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosed when he was 80, died of renal failure Saturday in an assisted living home in Hollywood, said his son, Tom Keane. "He was like the original independent record man in those days," said Tom Keane, a songwriter and record producer. "He was the guy going out and finding talent and developing it and getting it out to the masses." A clarinet player...

Every Christmas season, which in our home begins around the second week of November, I am on a mission. My goal: find one new CD and one new Christmas movie to add to our growing collection. The movie gets rotated in with about a dozen or so other favorites while the CD takes front and center stage. Whatever this CD is, it is played so constantly throughout the next 6 weeks that it must, by nature of its place in our routine, be extraordinary. I don’t give this spot to just any artist; but, rather, I spend time searching...

A few months ago one of my Aunts passed away and I drove up to Jersey for the funeral service. At the lunch afterward one of my cousins was kind enough to give my brother and me a mix of some some CD's he had burned. They were a compilation of the best of Stiff Records - a bunch of punk / new wave / underground music from the 70's. It featured bands like Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Devo, and Elvis Costello. Everybody has a favorite era in music - it usually coincides with when you come of age....

What could bring record producers, famous for working on music by Elton John, Blondie and Dolly Parton, together with Pope Benedict XVI and the former choir master of St. Peter’s Basilica? The answer is “Alma Mater,” a new CD from Decca released worldwide Nov. 28. The album features nearly 10 minutes of recordings of the Pope alongside eight tracks of Lauretan Litanies, Marian popular chants and modern classical music. Each track ends with Gregorian chant sung by the Philharmonic Academy of Rome Choir and conducted by Msgr. Pablo Colino, the former chapel master of St. Peter’s.For 26 years, the Spanish priest was...

My thoughts tend to wander in church. The lector might open with a biblical passage describing the Israelites assailing Jericho. I’ll picture myself inside the city, as a trader bartering in the ancient streets. This, in turn, will cause me to wonder how people got along in those days without air conditioning. So it was that, waiting for Mass to begin one recent Saturday evening, I was unruffled by the sweet, dark strains of “Night and Day.” “It’s just me,” I thought. “Just my wayward imagination.” It was with a jolt that I realized, “No, it’s not just me.” Someone...

Bob Dylan has at various times revolutionized folk, rock, country and gospel music. However, any Dylan fan who says he was not surprised that Bob has released an album of traditional Christmas songs is pulling your leg. Christmas In The Heart is another surprising move by an artist famous for surprises. Yet when you hear Dylan’s direct and obviously sincere readings of “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Little Town Of Bethlehem,” and “The First Noel,” this unlikely exercise seems of a piece with the rest of Dylan’s work. From the very first, this was an artist who made us look...

Kansas City, Mo., Nov 21, 2009 / 02:14 pm (CNA).- A community of Benedictine sisters living in the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph have released a Christmas CD titled “Christmas at Ephesus.” Proceeds from their new CD, comprised of traditional carols as well as the sisters' compositions, will go toward the building of a new monastery. The Benedictines of Mary Queen of Apostles are still new to the Kansas City Catholic community, invited by Bishop Robert W. Finn in 2006. A traditional monastic community of women who desire to emulate the Blessed Virgin Mary by living in quiet...

Folks, this is cool. Mark Stein, singer/keyboardist for 60s supergroup "Vanilla Fudge" has a song that isn't all that flattering to the Messiah. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5LLKs7oW_Q

We're In The Money

Barack Obama, oh yeah, say it again He's solid as a rock, Barack Obama If you believe like I believe that children are our future You're ready to move forward Instead of things being like they use to be . . .

Not in a concert, but in a Mass. It will be conducted by Domenico Bartolucci, the most brilliant interpreter of Palestrina's music alive today. He was removed as head of the Sistine Chapel choir twelve years ago, but now, with Pope Benedict, has finally been rehabilitated. (he probably means 'restored') ROME, November 16, 2009 – Among the arts to be represented in the Sistine Chapel next Saturday, November 21, at the highly anticipated meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, music is perhaps the one that has suffered the most from the divorce that has taken place between artists and the Church....

In the end, it was "Over the Rainbow" that made Eva Cassidy a star, but it didn't happen until five years after her death in 1993.

Satchmo and the Jews Terry Teachout From issue: November 2009 In addition to being the greatest jazz musician of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong was also the most beloved. “I never met anybody that didn’t love him that ever saw him work or ever has encountered him, had any connection or any business with him,” said Bing Crosby. The secret of Armstrong’s charm lay in the straightforward openness of his character. Though his personality was more complex than his fans realized, his public and private sides were essentially identical. One of his friends described him as “down-to-earth, natural, completely...

OK Yall. We turned on the Country Music channel and are watching Country at the White House. Brad Paisley is performing and we are enjoying the intamate lil concert and I blab out to KV that this must be an event for GW/Laura and friends. UHG! There the camera goes (60 inch tv) on Obama Close up and the Michelle too. They then cut to an interview with Brad done in the WH driveway and he oozed with Obama Love. How painful! Music so good but the butt kissing Country Love to obama is horrid. The Grand Ole opry just...

Aerosmith may be looking to replace frontman Steven Tyler, despite the band's 40th anniversary less than a year away. Tyler's possible departure is reportedly linked to the singer's focus on his solo career. The 61-year-old singer suffered a fall off the stage during a show in Abu Dhabi, which reportedly put strain on the band that had to cancel the rest of the tour. Aerosmith formed in 1970 and have released 14 albums. Among their most famous music includes 'Walk This Way,' 'Janie's Got a Gun,' and 'Dude

A popular saying among those who considered themselves part of the '60s counterculture went something like, "Never trust anyone over 30." In that context, it's interesting that quite a few of that era's iconic figures celebrated the applicable birthday before the calendar turned to 1970. One of them was Grace Slick, who rose to fame singing two hit singles by the San Francisco band Jefferson Airplane, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." She turned 30 on Oct. 30, 1969, which of course makes her 70 today

The music world is all riled up again and this time it’s for “Climate Change”. Oh climate change, yeah!!! After the wild success of projects like: USA for Africa, Band Aid, Live Aid, Farm Aid they’re now singing for temperature. All we need now is a big pair of headphones for the sun and… wait and a spaceship! A solar powered spaceship! Brilliant! Sadly, the artists are lame and the song is not very creative. They’ve basically taken Midnight Oil’s 1987 hit “Beds are Burning” and got a 2nd grader that attended an ALGORE lecture on the end of the...

It may not surprise parents that the head-banging, string-shredding world of heavy metal can seriously damage your health. But now Tony Iommi, the British guitarist who helped to invent the genre, has revealed that he is undergoing stem-cell treatment to save the hand that inspired a generation. The number of rockers suffering from repetitive strain injuries is on the increase, and medical specialists have warned that their careers will come to an end unless they seek professional help. As a founder member of Black Sabbath, the Birmingham rockers fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, Iommi, 61, hit on the distortion-heavy riffs that...

The British Library formally opened it’s landmark photography exhibition Points of View last night at a well-attended private view. The exhibition marks the librarys first ever photographic exhibition. It opens to the public free. At a risk of running out of superlatives Points of View is quite simply the best exhibition that the library has ever put on. It is a large show, but never feels unapproachable. It is well designed and laid out and presents a wealth of the library’s treasures... The poison in the veins: “After the fall of Ceausescu, the country has long delayed the opening of...

It is high time Brad Paisley and Tim McGraw were taken to task for their support of Barrack Husein Obama. I first must admit that I have been a fan of Brad and Tim for a long time. I love the way they put to tune and words of how it is to be a man is in the world. After all, how can you not enjoy listening to the way Brad strings together the words in his song titled, “I'm Still A guy”, or how he seems to lay his heart out in the tune titled, “I'm Gonna Miss...

It is high time Brad Paisley and Tim McGraw were taken to task for their support of Barrack Husein Obama. I first must admit that I have been a fan of Brad and Tim for a long time. I love the way they put to tune and words of how it is to be a man is in the world. After all, how can you not enjoy listening to the way Brad strings together the words in his song titled, “I'm Still A guy”, or how he seems to lay his heart out in the tune titled, “I'm Gonna...

What is your favorite movie theme tune? Mine is definitely the "Third Man" theme from the movie of the same name. Interestingly the director of that film didn't originally intend for music to play such an important part of that movie but Carol Reed was doing location scouting in Vienna and heard the zither sounds of Anton Karas at a beer garden. Reed loved the sound and brought Karas to London to compose a tune for his movie. Even before the movie was released, then tune was a big hit. When the movie was released, it too became a big...

Friday 1975 - Jackie Wilson collapses onstage after suffering a stroke, falls into a coma and spends the rest of his life in hospitals before dying in 1984 2001 - Ryan Adams releases his second solo album, Gold Happy Birthday 1945 - Onnie McIntyre (Average White Band) 1968 - Will Smith Saturday 1964 - The Kinks release the single You Really Got Me 1969 - Bill Graham opens the Fillmore West in San Francisco 1979 - The Clash release their first single in America I Fought the Law Happy Birthday 1925 - Marty Robbins 1945 - Bryan Ferry 1948 -...

I just deleted my Police CD's from my hard drive

A year ago Saturday, Tacoma garage-rock legends, The Sonics, showed us they still had it with a fierce, swaggering set at Seattle's Paramount Theatre, their first local performance since the Nixon administration. And as this Halloween approaches there's more Sonics news that's so good it's scary. Lead howler Jerry Roslie tells me his band is close to finishing four new songs with Seattle super-producer Jack Endino. The new song titles are "Bad Attitude," "Vampire Kiss," "Cheap Shades" and "Don't Back Down," Roslie told me this afternoon. And though he's not sure exactly how they will be released at this point,...

History comes back to haunt us. Just over 20 years ago, the then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “Britain and western Europe are not interested in the unification of Germany. The words written in the NATO communique may sound different, but disregard them. We do not want the unification of Germany.” She went on to say... About one year after the construction of the wall, Peter Fechter attempted to flee from the GDR together with his friend Helmut Kulbeik. The plan was to hide in a carpenter’s workshop near the wall in Zimmerstrasse and, after...

Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger

And the winner for most torturous sounds to a jihadi's ears is..... Was the theme to "Sesame Street" really played to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo and other detention camps? What about Don McLean's "American Pie"? Or the Meow Mix jingle? Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."? A high-profile coalition of artists -- including the members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and the Roots -- demanded Thursday that the government release the names of all the songs that were blasted since 2002 at prisoners for hours, even days, on end, to try to coerce cooperation or as a method of punishment....

Singing competitions can happen anywhere. Just ask Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who broke into song during a recent House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee hearing on high-speed rail. The subject of the hearing clearly had Cohen thinking about fast trains. “Have you ever heard of [1960s band] the Box Tops?” Cohen quizzed Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo. “Yes, I remember the Box Tops, but I ... ” he stumbled, “you were stretching me a little bit, but ... ” Cohen clearly had a home-field advantage: The Box Tops were a Memphis, Tenn., group whose biggest hit, “The Letter,” came out when...

This is the music at the end of the promo from the couple who posed as pimp and prostitute. After watching the promo, I had to look for the music. The singer/musician is Anthony Dini. I kind of liked it....

LOS ANGELES – The songwriter who wrote the catchy theme songs to "The Addams Family" and "Green Acres" television shows has died. Vic Mizzy was 93. .......................................... Mizzy has said that he didn't mind if people only remember him for the finger snaps at the start of the "The Addams Family" theme song. After all, he said "two snaps got me a mansion in Bel Air."

Great Manifestation anti-avortement à Madrid (English Translation) Over one million people participated in this mobilization organizers said. They were protesting against the proposed liberalization of abortion which would abort freely within 14 weeks. Seniors, families with children and strollers, groups of adolescents, religious and priests: A human tide has flooded the center of the Spanish capital. They were more than one million Catholics supported by the Church and the right to protest Saturday in Madrid against the proposed liberalization of abortion from the socialist government. The organizers have amounted to 1.5 million people participating in this event, while the Madrid...

I have seen some amazing musicians, but this kid's performance ranks. I can't remember last time I saw something musical that made my mouth hang open in astonishment, but this one did. This guy plays Vivalid's Concerto In G Minor (for Violin, String Orchestra and Continuo, Op. 8, No. 2, RV 315, "L'estate" (Summer): III. Presto) on Accordion) And it isn't just that he plays it...he absolutely smokes it! You have got to see this (linked to YouTube: Kid nails Vivaldi on an accordion!

Pop group A-ha have announced they are to call it a day, just months after achieving a top 10 album in the UK. "We've literally lived the ultimate boy's adventure tale," the group, which formed 25 years ago, said. The trio added that the split would allow them to pursue "other meaningful aspects of life, be it humanitarian work, politics, or whatever else". The Norwegian band scored international hits with The Sun Always Shines On TV and Take On Me in the 1980s. Their most recent album, Foot Of The Mountain, marked a return to their synth-pop roots after a...

NASHVILLE (The Borowitz Report) - President Barack Obama stunned the country music world today by picking up its highest honor, Country Music Entertainer of the Year. Mr. Obama was chosen unanimously, according to the Country Music Association, beating out such favorite as Carrie Underwood and Toby Keith.

In August, National Public Radio's flagship music program All Songs Considered published "The Best Music of 2009 (So Far)," a rundown of the top 30 songs and albums of the year-to-date as voted by the show's listeners... On the Best Songs list, there are no songs that cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and none by African-American performers. Two black artists, Danger Mouse and Mos Def, made the Best Albums list, at numbers 20 and 23, respectively. None of this is a surprise, of course. NPR's audience skews white and college-educated; so does Animal Collective's fan-base....

Just a post, to see what favorite song inspires freepers in praising the LORD? I have many, but I will say the one that connects to my soul like no other is *Through the Fire* by Jason Crabb and the Crabb Family http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4OvUU-ZHU&feature=related

SPRINGFIELD, Pa. – The singer who played the Frank Sinatra-type role of Johnny Fontane in "The Godfather" has died at his childhood home in suburban Philadelphia. Publicist Sandy Friedman says Al Martino died Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, in Delaware County. He was 82. Starting in 1952, Martino was known for hit songs including "Here in My Heart," "Spanish Eyes," "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Volare." Besides acting in the Marlon Brando classic "The Godfather," he sang the 1972 film's title score, "The Love Theme From The Godfather." His Fontane character is a singer and occasional actor.