Jim
Watson - Christmas at the Cave
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1225 (2012) Jim's 26th annual Christmas at the Cave show now on CD!
Christmas
Time's A-Coming, Making Plans, That Old Christmas Moon, On This Christmas
Day, The Birthday of our King, Mary's Boy Child, Nothing But A Child, Old
Toy Trains, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus/Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy,
One of Everything You Got, Up On the Housetop, There's No Place Like Home
for the Holidays/There's No Place Like Home on Christmas, Christmas in
the Trenches, O Little Town of Bethlehem, I Heard the Bells on Christmas
Day, Away in a Manger, White Christmas, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
BONUS VIDEOS on the CD: We Three Kings, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Order
from Jim:
Send
a check for $17.50 (includes shipping) to
Jim
Watson
132
Justice St.
Chapel
Hill, NC 27516
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| Liner Notes |
In 1986, in conversation
iwth Meg Rose Sorrell (then owner of the Cave in Chapel Hill, NC) we decided
that I should do a Christmas show. Over the years the show has become
a wonderful family and community event, especially during the set of sing-along
carols with nieces, nephews, parents and now grandchildren joinging in.
I have many fond memories - three generations of my family and my wife's
family, my dad leading a verse of We Three Kings, my mother drinking
a beer at age 90 and taking in the whole scene. Due to the persistence
of Blair Pollock, in 2011 the 26th annual was recorded by Jerry Brown of
the Rubber Room, and the result is 18 songs from all three sets plus two
songs on video (filmed by Davis Stillson Associates) that can be viewed
on the computer. |
| Review |
(Raleigh) News &
Observer: "Each of the past 46 (webgal note: it's really 26)
Decembers, Jim Watson has carried his acoustic guitar, songbooks and lyric
sheet handouts to Chapel Hill’s Cave, and invited all to join in an evening
of Yuletide cheer. Watson’s Christmas singalongs have helped make “the
season to be merry” ever more so. Last year’s concert, recorded live by
the Rubber Room’s Jerry Brown, is an early 18-track gift that will brighten
days and nights leading to the arrival of Old St. Nick."
|
Jim's Goodbye
to The Cave |
Howdy howdy folks - A melancholy
happy trails to the Cave, the bar in Chapel Hill that is closing after
about 50 years in business. A long, narrow room with a ceiling low
enough that I could touch it without jumping, no official stage - just
an area at the end where people played, and an atmosphere that you took
with you, particularly in the years when the blue haze of cigarette smoke
would be visible all the way to the back. My wife and I would come
home, go out on the screen porch and take our clothes off and leave them
out there for the night. When I started playing there in the mid
'80's it was an all-acoustic music bar, and after leaving the Red Clay
Ramblers I made my living there for several years, playing with the Next
Zenith String Band (with Bill & Libby Hicks and Tom Holt), the Green
Level Entertainers (with LeRoy Savage, Tony & Gary Williamson, and
Jerry Brown), Duke LaCrosse and Pinky Wyoming, and doing solo shows.
Meg Rose Sorrell and Bo Porter were the owners then, and it was in conversation
with Meg that the idea of me doing a Christmas show came up. From
1986 through 2017 I've gone in there and led people in singing carols -
there are people who've been coming for years now with grown children who
come to that show. I still think that my mother was the oldest person
to ever drink beer at the Cave when she was last there at age 90.
I had a lot of great times in there and it's sad to think it's closing.
I'll long remember the sign that was posted behind the bar - SERVICE WITH
A SNARL. You've got 10 more days to get in there, drink a beer (or
a mixed drink now) and toast Meg, Bo, Mr. Mouse, and Mark Conner and his
partners who have kept the Cave going all these years.
Jim Watson (April 20, 2018) |
Pictures from
Christmas shows
over the years |
Jim's
20+ Annual Christmas Shows
24th
Annual Cave Christmas |
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