The Joy of Singing

It's been a couple of years since I've posted anything about our singalong group here in Kaslo. We get together about once a month and have an old-fashioned sing-song, with a little help from a book entitled Rise Up Singing and from our pianist, Gail. Usually, there's about 30 people who show up at this event and we sit in a very big circle and each pick out a song. Gail plays and we sing. It's a great time. We sing everything from "Home on the Range" to Lennon-McCartney. About the only time we "rise up" is when "El Paso" is selected (a song I don't really enjoy now) and "The Mary Ellen Carter", and it's pretty much impossible to sit down during the singing of that song. The songbook has interesting notes about the origins of song and I'm always pleased to see how many really good songs were written by Canadians. Joni Mitchell stands out as one of them - hurrah, Joni! For a couple of hours, for me, this is JOY!