Singalong Jubilee - ST

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Bill Langstroth and The Jubilee Singers - This Land	02:19
	2	Catherine McKinnon and the Jubilee Singers - Plaisir d'amour	02:41
	3	Fred McKenna and the Jubilee Singers - I Saw the Light	01:48
	4	The Don Burke Four - Try to Remember	03:20
	5	Lorne White and the Jubilee Singers - Live a Humble Life	02:16
	6	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Sable Island Shore (Smilin' Ivan Dorey)	02:12
	7	Karen Oxley and the Jubilee Singers - Poor Little Girls of Ontario	01:55

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	The Don Burke Four - Road to Freedom	02:07
	2	Kay Porter and Fred McKenna - Springhill Mine Disaster	02:58
	3	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Marching to Pretoria	02:10
	4	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Old Blue	02:52
	5	Fred McKenna and the Jubilee Singers - A Dollar Ain't a Dollar	01:42
	6	Catherine McKinnon and the Jubilee Singers - Nova Scotia Song (Helen Creighton)	02:33

Photos

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Information/Write-up

Singalong Jubilee was one of the most influential and quietly far-reaching programs in Canadian music history, serving both as a weekly national showcase for folk and roots music and as a proving ground for an extraordinary generation of Canadian performers. Produced from CBC Television’s Halifax studios, the series aired from 1961 to 1974 and helped define how Canadian folk, country, gospel, and traditional music was heard, understood, and celebrated across the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The show emerged as a summer replacement for Don Messer’s Jubilee, but quickly developed an identity of its own. Rather than focusing on established stars, Singalong Jubilee centered on community singing, regional repertoire, and contemporary folk material, encouraging audience participation and emphasizing musical authenticity over polish. Under producer Manny Pittson’s guidance, the series blended Maritime tradition with the wider folk revival then sweeping North America, presenting a mix of ballads, spirituals, sea songs, humour pieces, protest songs, and newly written Canadian material.

At the heart of the program were its hosts and musical anchors. Bill Langstroth, who combined his on-air role with behind-the-scenes work as producer-director at CBHT, became the show’s guiding presence, introducing songs, leading group numbers, and shaping the program’s inclusive tone. Alongside him, Jim Bennet emerged as one of the show’s most versatile voices, equally at home with traditional folk airs, country-leaning material, and original songs such as “Nova Scotia Diet.” Multi-instrumentalist Fred McKenna contributed a distinctive instrumental voice on guitar, banjo, fiddle, and steel, while also serving as a featured singer across a wide stylistic range.

One of Singalong Jubilee’s most lasting legacies was the careers it helped launch. Catherine McKinnon became an early standout, her clear soprano and theatrical poise making her one of the series’ most recognizable performers. In 1965–66, a young Anne Murray joined the cast fresh from university in New Brunswick, making her television debut on the program before going on to an international recording career. The show also introduced audiences to Ken Tobias, whose songwriting would soon attract wide attention, as well as Acadian singer Edith Butler, whose inclusion reflected the program’s expanding embrace of French-language and regional traditions.

The ensemble aspect of Singalong Jubilee was central to its sound. The Jubilee Singers—a rotating vocal group drawn largely from the Halifax area—provided rich choral backing and frequently stepped forward as soloists. Over the years, the chorus included performers such as Karen Oxley (who also served as choral director), Hal Kempster, Lorne White, Penny MacAuley, Marg Ashcroft, Jay Gallant, Linn Carroll, Michael Scott, Clary Croft, Tom Kelly, Vern Moulton, Gordon McMurtry, Hazel Walker, and others. Instrumental support evolved as well, with musicians such as Brian Ahern, Don Burke and the Don Burke Four, Vic Mullen, Garth Proude, Jack Lilly, Paul Mason, and Georges Hébert contributing to the show’s flexible, folk-rooted arrangements.

The material presented on Singalong Jubilee ranged widely. Traditional songs from the British Isles and Maritime oral tradition sat alongside African-American spirituals, Acadian folk songs, gospel numbers, and contemporary compositions by writers such as Gordon Lightfoot and Phil Ochs. The program made little distinction between sacred and secular, old and new, instead presenting Canadian music as a living continuum shaped by geography, community, and experience. This approach helped normalize Canadian-written songs on national television at a moment when domestic content was still finding its footing.

The popularity of the series naturally extended into recordings. Beginning in 1964, CBC partnered with Arc Sound to issue a run of Singalong Jubilee LPs, including Singalong Jubilee, Singalong Jubilee Volume II, Volume III, and The Singalong Jubilee Christmas Album. These releases captured many of the show’s most requested performances and preserved early recordings by artists who would soon achieve major success. In the early 1970s, material from the program was reissued on RCA Camden, and later anthologized on CD, ensuring the music remained accessible long after the television series ended.

By the time Singalong Jubilee concluded in 1974, it had quietly reshaped the landscape of Canadian folk and country music. It provided sustained national exposure for regional artists, documented a broad cross-section of Maritime and Canadian traditions, and helped bridge the gap between community music-making and the professional recording industry. Today, the show stands as one of the clearest audiovisual records of Canada’s folk revival era—a program rooted in participation, regional pride, and the belief that the country’s most compelling music was already being sung at home.
-Robert Williston

Musicians
Bill Langstroth
Catherine McKinnon
Fred McKenna
Jim Bennet
Karen Oxley
Kay Porter
Don Burke
Brian Ahern

Groups
The Jubilee Singers
The Don Burke Four

The Jubilee Singers
Front Row
Gordon McMurtry
Patricia McKinnon
Kay Porter
Bud Kimball
Marilyn Davies
Hal Kempster
Marg Ashcroft

Sitting
Karen Oxley
Vern Moulton
Catherine McKinnon

Back Row
Toni Roach
Herb Doane
Hazel Walker
Lorne White

The Don Burke Four
Brian Ahern
Marilyn Davies
Kay Porter
Don Burke

Production
Produced by Manny Pittson
Audio Engineer: Don Jackson
Music Sound Consultant: Graham Day

Photography
Photos courtesy CBC Information Services

Liner notes:
When he’s not leading the songs, emceeing the show and playing long-neck banjo on Singalong Jubilee, BILL LANGSTROTH may be found in a Studio Control Room here at CBHT, for Bill’s full-time job is that of Producer-Director.

Bill developed his penchant for leading groups in community folk singing during his college days. For the record, Bill was instrumental in launching Singalong Jubilee and he’s kept it moving with his own energetic brand of emceeing and his infectious love of “singing a rouser”.

During his checkered career, FRED McKENNA has sung songs of all kinds and played “anything with strings” in at least revival meetings, carnivals, lumber camps and weddings.

It would be difficult if not impossible to assess Fred’s contribution to the show in a few words, but about the sincerest compliment we can pay him is to say that without him Singalong Jubilee would not have been possible.

It’s indicative of his versatility as an artist that on this recording Fred may be heard featured on a rousing gospel tune – “I Saw The Light” and a sensitive folk ballad – “Springhill”.

There are many things to be learned from the CBC Announcer’s Handbook, but how to sing and sing well in a rich, powerful baritone is not one of them. Although he’s shy of the billing – “The Singing Announcer” – there’s no doubt that as far as Singalong Jubilee is concerned, JIM BENNET discharges his duties equally well in both categories. By his treatment of the traditional folk air “Old Blue” it is evident that he brings many years of vocal training to his performances, but somewhere between “singing stars” and “Singalong Jubilee” Jim acquired a taste for that which is perhaps more country than folk. Listen to “Sable Island Shore” written by a resident of Nova Scotia’s south shore “Smilin’ Ivan” Dorey and undertones of another Haligonian and singer named Hank are very much in evidence.

On the distaff side of Singalong Jubilee, there’s another trained singer who can switch from a folk song to an aria with great ease, our prima donna CATHERINE McKINNON.

We consider that Catherine possesses a rare talent: a soprano voice that is at once strong and true but at the same time capable of a warmth that can do justice to a love song of the French Royal Court – “Plaisir D’Amour”.

On the other hand, her arrangement of “The Nova Scotia Song” from the Helen Creighton Collection is very much in the North American folk tradition, and Catherine had made it very much her song.

The Don Burke Four consists of two boys, two girls and two guitars who combine to form a rarity – a folksinging group that possesses a distinct musical identity when most folk trios and quartets sound like copies of one another.

“The Ballad Of Springhill” is a written folk song, and it’s appropriate that KAY PORTER, a native of Springhill, Nova Scotia, should be so successful in interpreting this number that has found itself a permanent spot in the Singalong Jubilee repertoire. Kay is teamed with Fred McKenna on this cut.

When he’s not working with his group, DON BURKE is resident five-string banjoist on Singalong Jubilee.

A housewife, several lawyers, an insurance salesman, students, stevedores, two mortgage officers, an engineer and a physical education instructor can and do form a professional singing group every week on CBC Radio and Television. We’re proud to call them the JUBILEE SINGERS, and we’re proud of the way they’ve performed on many of the selections on this L.P.

KAREN OXLEY has stepped forward many times in the past to perform solo, and on this recording she’s featured in “Poor Little Girls of Ontario”. LORNE WHITE, a veteran Jubilee Singer, is responsible for the arrangement of “Live A Humble”.

Finally, we would be remiss in our duty should we fail to mention two very important members of the Singalong gang: bassist EARL FRALICK, Audio Engineer, DON JACKSON and Music Sound Consultant GRAHAM DAY, all of whom bring much talent to this recording and to the television show.
-Manny Pittson, Producer
Singalong Jubilee

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