Christmas 2008

Here's hoping your 2007 Christmas was happy and fun. Mine was not - I was sick as a dog on Christmas day, but I did have a lovely Christmas Eve. Not a total loss.

Here's the first pic for 2008 The Lennon Sisters and Tony Orlando Christmas show in Branson.



Check out the article here.

Christmas Spirit - Lennon Style

Now here is a great old magazine cover story, the Jan. 1959 issue of TV Radio Mirror. Don't the Lennon Sisters look beautiful with their dad, Bill? The article is sweet but it's the photos that are impossibly cute, especially little Mimi in that picture with Dee Dee.

Enjoy!

Old Welk Christmas Specials

There's a dvd available on Amazon of three black and white Christmas episodes of The Lawrence Welk Show, all featuring The Lennon Sisters. My copy came in the mail today. What fun old shows.

Here's a few caps (I'm too tired to cap it all) and a breakdown of the Lennon Sisters songs.





1958 Christmas Party:

O Holy Night - Lennon Sisters
All Around The Christmas Tree - Janet, Brian and Cubby
Baby's First Christmas - Janet, Aladdin
Outer Space Santa - Janet, Brian and Cubby (this was bizarre)
Silent Night - Glee Club
Jingle Bells - all the kids of the Welk performers including the LS brothers and sisters

1959 Christmas Show:

O Holy Night - Lennon Sisters
Ring Those Christmas Bells - LS, Larry Dean, Dick Dale, Jimmy Roberts, Rocky Rockwell
Thanks For Christmas - Dee Dee
Jingle Bells - LS and gang for Dodge commercial
Medley of traditional carols - Glee Club

1966 Winter Special (no Peggy in this one.):

Winter Wonderland- LS & gang
There Are No Strings On Me - Lennon Sisters
Star Of The North and Rejoice - LS & gang
Silver Bells - Kathy and Steve Smith

Lennon Sisters, Hollywood Palace Clips

First off, I really enjoyed the past Saturday's Lawrence Welk Show, especially the interview with Dee Dee at the end. She looked terrific, and was so very charming and down to earth. I didn't get to record it due to a brain malfunction on my part - um, I temporarily forgot how to work the dvd recorder. Given that my dad has Alzheimer's I found this a little disconcerting. But I'm only 41! Probably it was just a fluke, and I am on cold medicine, so....

Anyway, I'm not completely brain dead, as I have added two clips of The Lennon Sisters to YouTube. These are from the Dec. 5, 1967 episode of The Hollywood Palace, ironically enough hosted by Jimmy Durante who later teamed up with The Lennon Sisters for their own variety show. I guess this is where the idea originated.

Here we have This Is My Song, with the girls looking so elegant and sounding gorgeous.


Next up, Up, Up and Away. OMG, who came up with this choreography?!

Lennon Sisters on Family Feud

Back in 1984 The Lennon Sisters did one of their guest spots on game shows, this time, Family Feud. Their opponents: Sister Sledge of We Are Family fame (I loved that song as a kid, even bought the 45).

All four Lennon Sisters compete, with sister Mimi rounding out the team. Nice teamwork, girls, but I cannot believe y'all couldn't come up with the last answer to "what do people say they don't get enough of?". Hello!

So do they win? Watch and see.

Lennon Sisters and Glen Campbell

Over on the Lennon Sisters World Yahoo Group Vicky posted a link to a great video clip of The Lennon Sisters and Glen Campbell singing Christmas Eve. It's from a Dec. 1968 episode of The Hollywood Palace. It really is a sublime Christmas song, beautifully sung by the Lennons and Glen.

I've ripped the audio from the clip for an mpeg. If you'd like to add this gem to your Christmas music collection, you can download it here.

Big Thanks to Vicky for the heads up.

Lennons and Lemontinis

Hope y'all had a lovely Thanksgiving. My family did. It was a smaller gathering than usual at my oldest sister's house but it was fun. There was much eating, drinking, and really bad karaoke. The Lennon Family we ain't. What I lack in talent I make up for in volume. I totally belted on Carrie Underwood's Before He Cheats. Any inhibitions I had were taken care of by the Lemontinis I consumed. My sister was in charge of the food; I was in charge of the booze. Let me share the Lemontini recipe - y'all, they are soooo good.

Ingredients:
Absolut Citron Vodka
Lemon Concentrate
Simple Syrup - mix 1 cup sugar into 1 cup boiling water until sugar is dissolved.
Sliced Lemon

Mix in Shaker:
several ice cubes
2 and 1/2 jiggers of citron vodka
1 jigger simple syrup
1/2 jigger lemon concentrate

Shake well, pour into sugar-rimmed coated glass, add slice of lemon.

Mmmmmmmmm.....

Now here's a fun picture of The Lennon Sisters doing their "strip" number. I'd have to drink way more to add this to my karaoke repertoire.

original Lennon Sisters reunited onstage

Over on the Welk Notes group and website, fans have posted about the special treat they enjoyed at Thurs. Nov. 1, 2007 show by The Lennon Sisters/Gatlin Bros. in Branson. Dee Dee and Peggy Lennon were both in the audience and joined their sisters onstage for a performance of May You Always. What a delightful surprise that must've been!

Check out Alice's photos of the event on WelkNotes.com. Peggy's outfit is most unfortunate, but Dee Dee looks cute in jeans.

another picture post!

Here we have more pictures of the photogenic Lennon Sisters, courtesy of Katerina. The first two are just precious. Peggy's smile is so cute. They were adorable little girls who turned into real beauties.

Halloween, Lennon Sisters Style

Happy Halloween, y'all! Hope all you ghouls and goblins are getting your fill of treats. Our department at work dressed up as circus clowns, and we won best dressed! Woot!

I can't let the day pass without posting the halloween clips I uploaded to YouTube - The Lennon Sisters performing Dem Bones, and the whole Lennon Family decorating their family home to the nth degree. This family knows how to celebrate the holiday! Does anyone know, do they still decorate like this at one of their homes in Branson?

Lennon Sisters 1950s Photos

I won some charming photos on ebay recently of the Lennon Sisters from the fifties, as well as a fashion layout they did for a magazine called Western Family. Not sure of the date - maybe 1957 or '58. The school fashions they modeled remind me of old pictures of my mother from that era. As a matter of fact Peggy looks not unlike my mom.



With their dad, Bill.


I have no idea who these little boys are.

Easy To Remember

Back in 1992 The Lennon Sisters hosted a special, Easy To Remember, a delightful and entertaining look back at their early years on The Lawrence Welk Show. They were such sweet little girls, so very endearing with their beautiful harmonies. No wonder everyone fell in love with them.



I made eleven clips from the special and uploaded them to YouTube. Hope you enjoy them!

missed opportunity: What A Man My Man Is

Saw this little item about a song recorded by Lynn Anderson that was originally written for The Lennon Sisters. Too bad they didn't get to do it - it's a fun song.

STORY BEHIND THE SONG

A lot of hit songs have been written for a certain artist but wound up being recorded by someone else.

According to Glenn Sutton, Lynn Anderson’s “What A Man My Man Is” was one of those tunes!

Glenn commented, “I wrote that song for The Lennon Sisters. They were signed to record for Alantic Records and Rick Sanjek was the head of A& R for them and he asked me to do an album on them. So I had that song just about finished

And I flew to Las Vegas where The Lennon Sisters were opening for Andy Williams. I had never met them and I went backstage and talked to them and gave them four or five songs. They loved the songs but they never did record them. They got into some kind of contract dispute with Atlantic and never recorded it. And later, Lynn recorded it.”

“What A Man My Man Is” entered the country music charts October 28th, 1974 and made it to number one. It was Lynn’s 33rd charted song and was on the charts for 13 weeks.

Source

Complete Lennon Family Album

It's mah birthday weekend, y'all! The big day is actually tomorrow, but I'm going out partying tonight. Before I hit the town, let's fire up the 'ol scanner and post some fan magazine gems.

10 Fabulous Years! Complete Lennon Family Album: Memories That Make The Lennons Laugh - and cry!

The title kind of sums it up for this Sept. 1966 cover story from TV Radio Mirror. It's chock-a-block full of Lennon Sisters photos. Back then they were celebrating a mere 10 years in showbiz. Now of course they've got 50 years under their belts. Pretty damn amazing.

Enjoy!

On the radio

They said it really loud
They said it on the air
On the radio
Whoa oh oh

Forgive the Donna Summer segue to some Lennon Sisters radio clips.

While browsing around the internets, I found the some fun radio interviews from the series Travel Talk Radio. It's hosted by Sandy Dhuyvetter, who is clearly a true Lennon Sisters (and Venice) fan. I love how genuinely thrilled she sounds at getting to interview Janet in particular. Enjoy the clips!

Janet Lennon interview from Chicago, Feb. 2005


Dan Lennon interview from Nashville, Feb 2006


Kathy, Janet and Mimi Lennon interview, Nashville, Mar. 2006


Kathy and Janet Lennon interview, San Diego, Oct. 2006

Somethin' Stupid album

Released in April 1967, Somethin' Stupid was the first of four Lennon Sisters albums produced by Snuff Garrett.



I very much like the pop stylings on these records. I actually prefer them to many of the Lennon Sisters more recent arrangements which can be overly slow. Personally I'd like to hear them perform some recent songs - that would be a treat. I don't mean Britney. Yeah, can't you just imagine, "It's Janet, bitch".

*snort*

Noooo, I mean stuff along the lines of Rilo Kiley's Silver Lining, Mindy Smith's Come To Jesus (okay this is a slow one, but it's so haunting), Sheryl Crow's Diamond Road, Garbage's Special (really, they could harmonize the hell out of this one), and anything by Maria Mckee. Well, that's my wishlist.

Anyway, back to the lp. It's got some terrific pop gems. I'm especially partial to Single Girl and There's A Kind Of Hush. Have a listen and enjoy!

Lennon Sisters Collages by Katerina

Katerina has made two beautiful collages from some of the many Lennon Sisters photos she's collected over the years. They're terrific wallpapers - a smörgåsbord of Lennon loveliness.



She also sends along a couple other photos and I've added one more for your enjoyment. Thanks Katerina!