Luxon & Crofut: 'Tis a gift to be simple

Another tune with roots in the old world with old world lyrics - Tis a gift to be simple - and different new world lyrics - Lord of the dance.
Performed by English opera singer Benjamin Luxon and American folk singer Bill Crofut.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Benjamin
• Luxon
• Bill
• Crofut
• Tis
• gift
• to
• be
• simple
• Lord
• of
• the
• dance
• acoustic
• music
• folk

[jarabaa]

Er, no, not quite. This is a New World melody with New World lyrics: "Simple Gifts" ("Tis a gift to be simple") was a hymn composed by Shakers in the United States. The tune features (famously, I thought) in Copland's "Applachian Spring", written in the 1940s. In 1963, Sydney Carter took the melody and wrote a completely new Christian lyric to go with it called "The Lord of the Dance". I find that here in Britain many people believe Carter wrote the melody. He didn't.

[dnworks]

@jarabaa Thanks for the insight. The information I listed on the video was from the original video itself. By the way, I looked at your channel and subscribed to it ... I love your selections.

[edgegalcom]

So glad there are people like this making wonderful music~~

[annadams95340]

Wonderful. I've known both songs forever (especially Simple Gifts) but never heard them combined like this. What a loss to the music world with the death of Crofut and Luxon's hearing impairment.

[Ryuzinx]

is he still alive?

[micael5963]

Che figata!Stupendo!

[arpeggio1358]

Benjamin Luxon's voice was so lovely. It's fortunate that there are so many of his recordings still around.