Friday, December 30, 2005

Burl Ives


"Burl Ives was one of six children born to a Scottish-Irish farming family in Jasper County, Illinois. He first sang in public for a soldiers' reunion when he was 4. In high school he learned the banjo and played fullback, intending to become a football coach when he enrolled at Eastern Illinois State Teacher's College in 1927. He dropped out in 1930 and wandered, hitching rides, doing odd jobs, street singing.

Summer stock in the late '30s led to a job with CBS radio in 1940; through his "Wayfaring Stranger" he popularized many of the folksongs he had collected in his travels. By the 1960s he had hits on both popular and country charts. He recorded over 30 albums for Decca and another dozen for Columbia. In 1964 he was singer-narrator of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) (TV), an often-repeated Christmas television special. His Broadway debut was in 1938, though he is best remembered for creating the role of Big Daddy in the 1950s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).

His four-decade, 30+ movie career began as a singing cowboy in Smoky (1946) and reached its peak with (again) the Big Daddy role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and an Oscar for supporting actor in The Big Country (1958), both in 1958. He officially retired to Anacortes, Washington, at age eighty though he continued to do frequent benefit performances."

More about Burl Ives can be found HERE.

Burl Ives - The Little White Duck

Burl Ives - A Froggy Went A Courtin'

These You Send It files are a last resort after several unsuccesful tries using other file hosting systems. Will use these until I find something better.

5 comments:

spice-the-cat said...

Whaay! - You just transported me back to when I was about five years old - Froggy Went 'A Courting - Much better that Bob Dylan's version.

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Mike said...

Some great tracks...this seems as good a time as any to mention how much I've enjoyed your site, since stumbling upon it a few months ago.
As to the file hosting issue, I prefer both of the services you used in the last two posts to Rapid Share, with all the hoops to jump through for downloading.

Wastedpapiers said...

Thanks spice and Mike. I dont think I've ever heard Dylan's version. No great loss by the sound of it!
I'm still searching around for a better free file hosting service so if you hear of one do let me know. Appreciate the feedback.

spice-the-cat said...

Michael,

May I wish you and your family a happy, successful and prosperous 2006.

I look forward to your coming discoveries.

Dave & Sandi Spice

http://spaces.msn.com/members/spice-the-cat/

http://spaces.msn.com/members/lynsaysands/

Russell CJ Duffy said...

One of my favourite of Burl Ives songs has to be the 'Swallow a Fly' song. Sung it to my kids and they still sing at the odd daft family party.