{"id":5833,"date":"2012-05-05T10:02:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-05T16:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/?p=5833"},"modified":"2012-05-05T10:02:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-05T16:02:41","slug":"mp3-download-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/mp3-download-review\/","title":{"rendered":"MP3 Download Review:Gordon Macrae in Concert \/ Hallowed Be Thy Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=adamsblog03-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=B004K4KAXY&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;m=amazon&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Gordon Macrae was a leading\u00a0baritone\u00a0on radio with his performances on programs like Skyline Roof (1946), \u00a0The Gulf Spray Show (1947), The Texaco Star Theater (1948), and most importantly, The Railroad Hour (1948-54). It was on <em>the Railroad Hour<\/em> that Macrae brought to radio countless musicals and operettas including classics like <em>New Moon, Brigadoon,\u00a0<\/em>and <em>The Mikado <\/em>as well as then-more recent Broadway hits like <em>State Fair. <\/em>Macrae&#8217;s star rose fast on radio and it would carry over to films where he would star in screen adaptations of plays he&#8217;d adapted for radio such as <em>Oklahoma <\/em>and <em>Carousel.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Amazon has released two of Gordon Macrae&#8217;s early Albums <em>Gordon Macrae in Concert (1958) <\/em>(which was ironically recorded entirely in the studio) \u00a0and <em>Hallowed be Thy Name.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The <em>In-Concert <\/em>CD includes a mix of love songs, philisophical songs like <em>&#8220;<\/em>I Believe&#8221; and &#8220;Lost in the Stars&#8221;, and classic ballads. \u00a0The song begins with the faster-tempo classic <em>Begin the Beguine <\/em>which McRae infuses with passion and power which would set the tone for the rest of the CD. Macrae&#8217;s performance of His version\u00a0<em>Old Man River <\/em>is one of the most solid versions of the old standard, as Macrae perfectly captured the mood of the song.<\/p>\n<p>This was something he also achieved with &#8220;Danny Boy&#8221; as he shows incredible range. \u00a0One reviewer who first heard it in the 1960s, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patfullerton.com\/gm\/reviews\/inconcertreview.html\">wrote<\/a>, &#8220;I was born in Ireland and I heard the song ad nauseum in Australia when my father and his pals had passed the 8th beer milestone and, really, I think I had developed antibodies to the song. Until Gordon&#8217;s version.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The second part of the album <em>Hallowed be Thy Name<\/em>\u00a0was made up of sacred songs and Macrae&#8217;s performance is striking. The songs are mostly the type of things you would hear in church in the late 1950s. To re-enforce this effect, \u00a0the songs are accompanied by an organ and\/or a choir rather than an orchestra.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who grew up only hearing the refrain of &#8220;Jesus Loves Me,&#8221; I was pleasantly surprised to hear actual verses sung to the song. Macrae sang several classic standards hymns such as &#8220;Onward Christian Soldiers&#8221; and &#8220;Rock of Ages&#8221; \u00a0and also the &#8220;Hallelujah&#8221; chorus. <em>Railroad Hour <\/em>fans will recognize Macrae&#8217;s version of &#8220;The Lord&#8217;s Prayer&#8221; \u00a0and he also sings &#8220;The 23rd Psalm.&#8221; Macrae&#8217;s best song on this particular album had to be his version of, &#8220;Holy, Holy, Holy&#8221; a song that was perfect for Macrae&#8217;s voice.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Amazon&#8217;s combination of these two great albums of secular and sacred songs was a treat that showcased one of the truly great musical talents of the golden age.<\/p>\n<p><em>This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post at no extra cost to the purchaser.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If you enjoyed this post, you can have new posts about Detective stories and the golden age of radio and television delivered\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004U8SET2\/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=adamsblog03-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B004U8SET2\">automatically to your Kindle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gordon Macrae was a leading\u00a0baritone\u00a0on radio with his performances on programs like Skyline Roof (1946), \u00a0The Gulf Spray Show (1947), The Texaco Star Theater (1948), and most importantly, The Railroad Hour (1948-54). It was on the Railroad Hour that Macrae brought to radio countless musicals and operettas including classics like New Moon, Brigadoon,\u00a0and The Mikado&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[123],"tags":[150],"class_list":["post-5833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-golden-age-article","tag-music-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pECdK-1w5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5834,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions\/5834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}