Album Notes

Nowell Sing We Clear was developed by Tony Barrand in 1975 to present the traditional music of Christmas: the story of Jesus as preserved in (mostly English) folksong, and customs such as wassailing and mummer's plays associated with the midwinter season. The performers are Tony Barrand, John Roberts, Fred Breunig and Andy Davis (who replaced original member Steve Woodruff), and we still present this show annually, mostly in and around New England.

When we combined our first three LP recordings onto a CD (GHM-202 The Best of Nowell Sing We Clear, 1975-1986), some songs were not included. A few omissions (such as "Green Grow the Rushes-O") left behind disappointed, even irritated fans. This current recording, released in December 2008, began as an effort to take a fresh look at some of these missing songs, so much so that its working title was "The Rest of...." It has, however, been supplemented with a lot of new material used in our stage show over the past few years.

Complete lyrics and notes to this and all our recordings are on the Golden Hind website at http://www.goldenhindmusic.com.

NOTE: We use the older English spelling "Nowell" for our name. Searches on "Noel Sing We Clear" may not find us - and we wouldn't want that to happen!