A few years ago, when Alexa was still relatively new, I asked her to play Christmas carols on classical guitar. She brought up an artist named Lasse Ivonen, who I wasn't familiar with. However, I soon found out this was a pseudonym for a German fingerstyle guitarist named Ulli Boegershausen, who I did know (and I like his playing a lot...he did a great version of "Both Sides Now" that I really love).
There were two carols I really liked that I wasn't familiar with. One was "How Far Is It To Bethlehem?":
I think it's starting to gain some popularity over here now the past few years. I belong to a Christian hymn group on Facebook and there were a few people who knew this carol, but most didn't. It's really a beautiful carol...for some reason, it just wasn't an overly popular carol here in America for a long time, but I'm starting to see more Americans becoming familiar with it.
I'm from England, and it's one of my favourites, I've known it all my life, a beautiful Christmas carol. It's funny how some songs don't travel, I assumed most English speaking nations pretty much sung the same carols.
Awesome! It is such a great carol. I really love the English carols that I've heard...you have some gorgeous melodies and beautiful carols in your part of the world! 😃
You are definitely correct about how some songs don't travel for some reason. I have another example that you are probably familiar with...a couple of days ago, I finally heard "Streets Of London" by Ralph McTell and I just loved it. I'd heard the song and McTell mentioned before, but I'd never heard it until a couple of days ago. What a sad, yet beautiful song. But it was never a hit here in the U.S.
Streets Of London is a great song, I haven't heard it in years, it reached number two in the UK, surprising to learn it failed to chart in the States, or that it wasn't covered.
Yes...I did some reading on it and I don't think they ever released it over here in the U.S. Maybe the record producers thought it was too depressing and/or too "location-specific" to be a hit here, but I think it would have been a hit here also.