Almost Day: A Song History

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"Almost Day" is a Christmas song from the repertoire of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly.[1] His recordings also go by the titles "Chicken Crowing for Midnight," "Christmas Song" and "Christmas Is a Coming."[1] In a spoken introduction preserved on one recording, he calls it "a children's play song on a Christmas night."[1] As he tells it, youngsters waiting up for Santa Claus head outdoors around midnight, when the roosters start crowing, and sing as they play in a ring.[1] The sources consulted here do not say whether he made the song up or learned it, and the credits differ: Smithsonian Folkways credits the song to Ledbetter on one track and as his arrangement on another, with publishing through TRO-Folkways Music.[1]

Woodblock print of a white rooster beside a yellow umbrella and blue morning glories

Utagawa Hiroshige, Rooster, Umbrella, and Morning Glories, woodblock print, ca. 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the crowing rooster of the song's story; it has no connection to the song.

A program in WNYC's Folk Songs of America series, broadcast on February 6, 1941, opens with it, and on that broadcast he shared the bill with the Oleander Quartet.[1][2] A discography of his sessions for producer Moses Asch, based on research by Kip Lornell and John Cowley, lists a "Christmas Song (It's Almost Day)" from April 23, 1944.[1] Another recording survives on an acetate disc whose date is unknown, and Smithsonian Folkways issued it in 1996 as "Chicken Crowing for Midnight" on Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 1.[1][3] The label's 1999 children's collection, Lead Belly Sings for Children, includes a track titled "Christmas is A-Coming (Chicken Crows at Midnight)."[4]

Lonnie Donegan, who took many of his songs from Lead Belly, also recorded it.[1] In 2015 Smithsonian Folkways included "Almost Day" in Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, a five-CD set compiled by Jeff Place and Robert Santelli.[1][5]

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Sources

  1. Smithsonian Folkways: "Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection" (SFW 40201) liner notes.
  2. Smithsonian Folkways: "WNYC Folk Songs of America: Almost Day / ... / Irene".
  3. Smithsonian Folkways: "Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 1".
  4. Smithsonian Folkways: "Lead Belly Sings for Children".
  5. Smithsonian Folkways: "Now Available: Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection".