The New Christy Minstrels took ensemble folk music to its logical conclusion. Many vocal groups utilized three or four participants, allowing for multiple lead singers and smooth harmony. The New Christy Minstrels consisted of 14 players, creating something akin to a choral group capable of handling complex arrangements of overlapping male/female harmonies. Presenting captures the group's youthful, happy sound in all its glory, with upbeat versions of "This Land Is Your Land" and "Oh! Shenando." While jaunty folk fare like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" prove a comfortable fit for the group's cheerful harmonies, pieces like "The Cotton Picker's Song" seem ill-chosen. Anyone vaguely familiar with songs associated with Leadbelly will wonder what a group of vibrant middle-class white kids know about picking cotton or sleeping in the pines all night. In Person presents the band in a live setting, and amazingly, they handle the multiple vocal parts with the same aplomb as their studio work. In "The Dying Convict," three singers open the song and are then joined by a soulful, swelling chorus. Even then, the Minstrels continue to develop the song with new harmonies and spoken monologues against a spare instrumental background. The group also shows off a lighter side on fun folk fare like "(The Story Of) The Preacher and the Bear" and "Susan Jane." Presenting/In Person represent the epitome of popular folk music during the early '60s, and represent the New Christy Minstrels at their most sprightly.
© Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. /TiVo