The Brothers Four - A New World's Record

Album  : A New World's Record

Artist  :  The Brothers Four

Genre  :  Folk

Year  :  1967

- Tracks -  (favorites in pink)

01.) Walkin' Backwards Down The Road
02.) Umbrellas In The Rain
03.) Shenandoah
04.) Have You Got A Light Boy?
05.) It Was A Very Good Year
06.) Meantime
07.) Here Today And Gone Tomorrow
08.) No Sad Songs For Me
09.) Changes
10.) The First Time Ever
11.) All I Need Is You

    A New World's Record was album #17 from The Brothers Four.  It came out in 1967, towards the end of their recording career, and no singles were released from this album.  The heyday of The Brothers Four was in the early 60's, with their three big hits being Greensleeves, The Green Leaves of Summer, and Yellow Bird.  They still tour, release CD's, and have a website.

    This album will never grow to be my favorite album by TBR.  For the most part, it consists of slow, mostly-sappy love ballads.  Folk albums will always have those, but they need to be balanced with peppy and witty songs.  Here, the only track that fits that bill is Have You Got A Light, Boy, which is by far my favorite song from the album.  Not surprisingly, no one had posted it to YouTube, so I made and posted my own video of it.

    But I don't want to bash this album too much.  The harmonies are still great, and if you're in the mood for Easy Listening music by an accomplished folk quartet, this will serve you just fine.  And if you're unfamiliar with them, YouTube does have a nice selection of Brothers Four videos, including a stunningly beautiful 4-song calypso medley.

    I picked up this LP for $1 out of the bargain bin at Half Price Books.  The cover is in poor shape; the LP can fall out of two opposite sides of it.   So it was a pleasant surprise to find the disc itself in very good condition.  This is another one that was clean enough to remove the scratches manually.

    Wikipedia lists 19 albums by The Brothers Four, fully admitting it is a "selected discography".  If you go to the TBF website, they list 45 albums, but only offer 18 of these for sale, and A New World's Record is not one of them.  So if you want to add it to your MP3 collection, digitalization is the only option.