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Burl Ives was a unique and remarkable entertainer, a folk and pop singer and guitarist, composer, radio performer and stage and film actor, who helped popularise traditional folk music across all generations but also had pop hits in his later career. Born in Illinois in 1909, he gave up training to be a teacher to become an itinerant troubadour-style entertainer, working on radio, and once jailed for vagrancy in Utah. After Army service in WWII, and appearing in Irving Berlin’s “This Is The Army”, he became a radio regular, and started recording, reviving many US and British folk songs. His early recordings of songs like “Blue Tail Fly”, “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “I Know An Old Lady” became children’s radio favourites for decades. This 87-track 3-CD collection comprises selected A & B sides from releases on the Columbia & Decca labels from these years, plus selected titles from the Decca albums “A Collection of Ballads & Folk Songs”, “Ballads & Folk Songs Vol 2”, “Folk Songs - Dramatic And Humorous”, “Women (Folk Songs About The Fair Sex)”, “Wild Side Of Life”, “Men: Songs For And About Men”, “Down To The Sea In Ships”, “Songs Of Ireland”, “Capt. Burl Ives Ark”, “Old Time Varieties”, “Australian Folk Songs” and “Cheers”. It includes his hits “Riders In The Sky, “Marianne”, “A Little Bitty Tear”, “Funny Way Of Laughing”, “Call Me Mr. In-Between” and “Mary Ann Regrets”. He was a one-of-a-kind performer, and this selection from his prolific recorded canon is a celebration of his distinctive contribution to popular culture.
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